PS

Further to my latest boring running blog.

I was saying how hard it is, but at least my foot is holding up and I’ve not had any plague weakness, so I am good to train and make up the lost fitness.

Then yesterday at work I came over all weak and useless. I really thought it was the plague weakness/ Post Viral Fatigue. I was gutted. They say you have to train within the envelope of what you can do, and slowly push the boundaries. Doubling my miles in a week, whilst going faster, sounded like a perfect example of going outside of the envelope.

I was devastated. That is the end of my sub 3 attempt for an indefinite period.

I had some food and it did seem to go off a lot, but by then you are looking for the symptoms. I’m sweaty: plague weakness, no concentration: plague weakness, weak: plague weakness.

I got home and did a covid test. That was clear.

Today I had an 8 mile run planned, with 10x 100m sprints. I set my alarm and got dressed, but I was expecting to call it off half a mile in. Nope, I was fine.

I was buzzing! The freezing cold 8 miles of pushing, with 10 sessions of flat out effort, were a joy and a privilege. Running to improve is such hard and painful work that you forget how lucky you are to be able to do it at all. It’s not until it’s snatched from you that you really appreciate it.

I think (and fervently hope) that the weakness was an energy crash. I’ve had them all my life, long, long before the covids. I’m basing that on the fact that, in an effort to understand how I can be burning so many calories and losing so little weight, I’ve started counting calories. Because I can’t often taste much I’ve got into the habit of cheese butties and peanut butter butties for work. Nuts are energy and protein. And so, so many calories it turns out. Two rounds of light, brown bread and a good splodge of peanut butter is 600 calories. Wendy cooked me some chicken thighs in tandoori paste, so I’ve been taking them. They are about 230 calories.

I think what happened was I was running a deficit from the previous day’s 12 miler, then I had no fat or massive calorie boost, so I crashed. Today was an 8 miler, it said I burned 999 calories so I had 500 calories (cereal and a banana) before work and I was fine.

Hopefully now I’m gaining a bit of insight into calories in/ calories out, I can start to lose some decent weight in a controlled manner with no more crashes. And, *touches all the wood* remain free of the plague weakness.

The plan is still on people, and now I’m grateful.

Just thought I’d record some positive stuff for a change.

Later,

Buck.

PPS I failed last week on the 12 mile run, the slowest I was allowed to go was 8.12m/m, but it was all I could do to hold 8.15. I decided to look on the positives and say I’d done 12 miles and was close enough that I could continue training while I waited for my fitness to catch up. 4 days later I went for a 10 mile run with the same target pace and came in at 7.53 m/m average! That didn’t take long! I did this week’s long run earlier today. It was 12 miles, same target. I think I overdid it yesterday, plus I waited until dinner time without eating, on a diet, before going out. I had nothing. I was expecting to get a sub 8 average, but had to settle for 8.07. Again, I did the distance, and this time I was within the limits of the run parameters. I’ll take it. (Edit: I may have sussed another contributory factor; turns out the 10 mid week was supposed to be a slower, “general aerobic”, run. Not flat out. Read the plan, fool!) The last few hard runs I’ve felt weak the day after. I’m putting it to the test. Tonight I had a proper tea, if I’ve still got weakness tomorrow it’s plague weakness and I’ve just got to suck it up. Hopefully it is just a huge calorie deficit. The good news about that is I’ve lost the first 6lb. A stone to go. That will make my training so much easier. I’ll be able to eat sufficient energy for the runs, and no blubber to drag around. (Edit: I was on tenterhooks the whole day, but I didn’t crash! It’s possible it was just the energy crash and that I’m finally free of the plague weakness! Hoof and that sorted, it’s do-able! Incredibly hard still, but not impossible.)

I’ve finally got out of my 3 ‘phone contract! YAY! It’s been over a year since we found out they kept on charging us for a ‘phone we weren’t using for about 6 months (I thought we’d closed the contract, apparently they did not). They could see that we hadn’t used the ‘phone at all, but didn’t give us a refund and made us pay until the end of the month. Out of principle I was determined to change provider as soon as my contract ran out.

So I got a new SIM card deal for my ‘phone. The card arrived, I popped it in, job’s a good ‘un.

No.

I could not get internet away from wifi. Which is where I spend most of my working day, and desperately need to be able to access the internet in case I get lost or can’t find where I’m supposed to be going, or whatever. It’s been 6 days. Two calls to tech support. Two visits to the shop in town. Two SIM cards. Nope. I can make calls fine, but can’t connect to the internet. Luke was giving me tech support on settings, still nothing. Out of desperation I wiped the ‘phone back to factory settings this morning. It was a nightmare to recover everything (my fault, I didn’t back it up) but still no internet. My last visit to the shop concluded with them saying “Our SIM card works (he showed me in his ‘phone) it’s your ‘phone.” I KNOW! It worked fine for years with 3! Sort it out! No.

Rather than throw away £10 a month contract for the next two years I just gave in and bought a new ‘phone. It’s a bit cheapo, but it does all I need. It was £180 on the shelf, scanned it, £110! That will do!

Then I’ve spent hours sorting out permissions on my apps as it’s a new ‘phone and I wiped the old one. Like an utter fool. Frustrating and stressful day, but I’m sorted now.

I should have posted the first bit separately, it was me being all positive and upbeat for a change. Then life gets in the way, lol.

Later,

Buck.