Is that what I think it is?

Ok, let´s start this final Blog before my race with a question. How many of you, while out running, have accidently stumbled across a nudist beach? It happened during my LSR on Sunday morning. It was also exclusively a gentlemen´s club of which they were all fully stand-up members. An interesting find all round, but I feel I may change the time of my run next time I go out that way.

Anyway, it served to teach me one thing and it´s this. How I do in my race on Sunday doesn´t really matter. What matters is that I´m going to race, I´m fit, I´m living healthy, I have no stress and I´m running and running and running. In other words, I´m not doing bad things to myself. This is not to say that bathing nude in an exclusive gentlemen´s club is doing a bad thing. Each to their own. All I´m saying is it reminded me a little of my Jimmy Page personality and the living free/not giving a toss mentality or the one I´m trying to keep under control. I´m glad and more than a little relieved I´m keeping it under control so if I ever do decide to try nude-bathing I know it will be a fully-informed choice.

So...the race is on Sunday. I´m ready. My LSR, apart from the interesting views, went really well. I was out for 3 hours, part-walking, part-running and I covered 14 miles. My mentality is also ready to be on my feet for that length of time. I´m still having fantasies about winning but I think that´s ok too. I like them and they beat fantasies about headlining at Glastonbury, simply because I think it´s slightly more realistic (but not by much).

Another thing I did was a full range of cardiac tests. Everything is fine just like I knew it would be. Like I said, I´m ready. My next blog will be a race report of the Pedreguer Mountain Half-Marathon. I love the way it sounds simply because 18 months ago this wouldn´t have been possible in my wildest dreams.

Doubts creeping in...

It´s been a strange couple of weeks since I last blogged. I´ve done quite a bit of training over this time, including a great 2 hour LSR that took in two pretty good hills (one pictured below) and a beach run. The weather has also started to turn and, as is typical for Alicante, the season of Spring lasted about 2 weeks before it started to get seriously hot. Hot weather is good for running as it develops your mental strength and makes you draw on reserves of will when your mouth starts to feel like a desert and your legs start to feel like jelly.

However, I´ve also been to A&E. On one of my Saturday runs I was just starting to head up my second steep hill when I suddenly had the sensation of all my breath being knocked out of me. It passed almost instantly but then repeated again a couple of seconds later. I stopped running and walked home. The next day, on a doctor friend´s orders, I went to A&E where they did a load of tests, resulting in an all-clear. However, just to make sure I´m having a full range of proper cardiac tests on the 22nd. Paranoia is an expensive business.

Why do these doubts creep in? I used to suffer from anxiety a lot more when I was younger and I thought I´d beaten this kind of thing. Maybe it´s the race coming up, which normally sets me off with the symptoms of a cold. Now it´s setting me off with fears of something far more serious. My bloody subconscious gets right on my wick.