It's been a while

I didn't write for over a month. I'm going to use the usual excuses. Too much work, too much training. Well, I've done a lot of training, that's for sure. I did my first training run ever longer than marathon distance. Granted, it wasn't much longer, but 46.5kms isn't bad. During the run, I went through marathon distance at 3:54, which is a record for me. It was my first time experimenting with energy drink and plain water. I guess it worked. It was an advantage that I was running on the flat, mainly on roads during a visit to Friesland. Since then, I've run some really tough 40km+ runs on mixed terrain, including very soft, steep sand. Right now, I'm home sick. My last long run was a real tough one. It was last Sunday. I thought I'd just about got rid of a cold which had been threatening for a few days (lots of people at work are sick right now), so I went on a long run in the dunes. I managed to get lost in a part of the dunes which has a lot of very twisty steep soft sand paths. I ended up running in circles for 2 hours before I found my way out. I ran another 2 hours in the pouring rain. After the run I started feeling ill. It took a few days for it to develop into a really bad cold complete with an amazingly painful headache. But looking on the bright side, I got in a long run and learnt that it's probably not the best idea to run a marathon in the rain when you have a cold.

Earlier this week I saw a documentary following a few people running this year's marathon des sables. It gave me a good insight into what to expect and how the race unfolds. It also made me a little less nervous about running. I think because I hadn't seen any documentaries about the event, I'd built it up in my mind into something almost impossible to achieve. Now I see that my training is really going to help me when I get there and that I'll have trained a lot harder than some of the people taking part.

Well time for some more headache tablets. I hope I can run again on soon. I really feel like a caged animal right now (plus head/body ache).