Lady Carrington Drive

I had 38km on the program today as I am in training for the Coastal Classic 12 hour race. As the thought of running on roads for 38km didnt appeal to me, nor did doing 100 laps of Centennial Park, I decided to head to Lady Carrington Drive for a change.

I slept in a little this morning until 6.30, which meant by the time I got out there and sorted myself out it was almost 8.30. I packed everything into my camelback that my parents bought me from Thailand and headed off. It was so beautiful being out on the trail. As it was too early for families it was only the runners out at first and the birds. Right near the start I saw Belinda Wilsher out finishing a run with another top female runner, her name escapes me at the moment. I noticed that my right calf that has been giving me trouble lately was pretty tight and sore from the very start. I just kept pushing through until I was so tired that I didnt notice it anymore. I couldnt believe how much I was sweating. Although there was cloud coverage, it was still really warm today and the bladder pack was making me sweat even more. At first I couldnt get anything out of the pack, there was no water coming through, and then I realised I had it in there upside down...dohh. Even after it was in the right way water was still not coming out so I was having to drink straight from the bladder. I done a full lap up to the Waterfall entrance and back to Audley. I was feeling really tired then and had enough and was debating whether to call it quits and maybe do the rest later in the evening. I knew though, that if I called it quits then there was no way I would get off my butt in the afternoon and I had to just get it over with. I ran back to the car and dumped off the bladder pack and took a water bottle which was a lot easier to carry and headed back out to do my second lap of Lady Carrington. Before I left though, I took a detour to the ladies to drench myself in water as well as my hat to try and cool down a little. I got some really wierd looks from some people ;)

The second lap was a real struggle. I had been taking walking breaks (after reading advice on Coastal Classic) the entire time to get used to them, but they were becoming more frequent now and my pace had dropped to over 7 min km's which is not good. I decided that 38km was out of the question today as I had lost so much sweat and had only had 2 Gu's with me and wasnt getting enough sodium. I decided that 34km would be enough. When I got back to the car I had done 33.5 in 3hrs 50 min and was happy with that. I was absolutely buggered. By the time I finished it was the middle of the day and stinking warm. I had to keep drinking and eating on the drive home to stop myself from dozing off as I was exhausted. When I got home I was too much of a wuss to have an ice bath so had a cool bath instead.

Some lessons learnt:
* I am crap at carrying water on a run. I cant stand fuel belts and I struggled with the extra weight of a bladder pack (it was 2 litre and I had other stuff in there)
* I really need to invest in some of the salt tablets Sean gave me at Brindabella as I sweat buckets
* I will need to make sure I have no sleeping in on long run day as running near the middle of the day isnt fun
* I need to make sure I take more Gu's out with me