The run started off well enough, we chose to do the forest run again and this particular circuit is about 5.5km of loose trails and some stupidly steep hills, it was my first run in 3 days so we decided to do the circuit clockwise for a change - secretly I believed it to be an easier way round.
I managed to get my breathing under control quite easily from the start - I'm asthmatic so it's imperative I control it - and I was so pleased because we actually made it up a particular hill that I've never managed to do before without stopping.
After the hill the trail evens out with a few small declines but at about the 3k mark I started to get numb feet, I tried rolling my feet and lifting my legs a bit more but it wasn't really working, that's when I realised I had put the wrong trainers on, I should have put the Asics creed on but I was wearing Asics gel virage. I think once I realised the shoe mistake I kind of accepted that the run was going to be uncomfortable from thereon out but I did stop for a few seconds anyway to try to get some feeling back in my feet - big mistake!
I always always find it hard to start running again once I've stopped and once we did get going again I was so busy concentrating on rolling my feet to stop them going numb and to reduce the calf pain that I wasn't concentrating on breathing.
There comes a point toward the last part of this run where we are faced with 3 steep long hills and I've never been able to make it up them, in fact Leanne and I would usually walk them - I knew walking them wasn't going to be a possibility with Wayne though and so I really tried to dig deep, slow down and just mentally get myself up the first hill.
A little way up the hill we saw a couple running down it and for some stupid reason I increased my pace so I didn't look slow and I shut my breathing right down so I wasn't as noisy, by the time the couple had passed us I was on my last legs and then suddenly from nowhere I was gripped in sheer complete panic. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't get my breathing under control and I had terrible calf pain, on top of that I was about to throw up - I literally just stopped running!
By this time I was in a state. I was walking around to try to stop myself puking (phobic) and to try to ease the calf and foot pain but I seriously could not breathe and this awful sense of sadness and foreboding came over me - I really thought I may just die there in the forest.
Wayne was doing his best to calm me down but as far as I was concerned I was giving up, never running again, it was a stupid thing to be doing anyway and could I just walk back to the car, I was actually quite miffed that Wayne insisted I could make the hills. Honestly, I'm gasping for breathe, almost in tears and gagging and Wayne is insisting I can make it up the freakin hill. Just the thought of attempting the hills any further was making me panic all the more!
After a few minutes I weighed up the pros and cons - I either run up the damned hill as slow as necessary or I walk it and get lectured from Wayne the entire way up, plus I have to admit that once I'd calmed down I wanted to make the hill simply because Wayne had so much belief that I could.
And guess what............I made all the hills! Wayne was right, I could do it and I did. I didn't puke, the pain didn't kill me and as long as I slowed my pace right down I managed the rest of it without stopping.
If it hadn't been for Wayne I would not have managed that.
I'm not sure why the graph shows more than 2 stops because I didn't stop at all after those first two, I can only assume I dropped my pace so much that it stopped registering - oops!
I must get my heart rate monitor synched to my running watch, I'd be most interested to see what is actually going on during these runs. I believe I recover very quickly at the end of the run, a minute or so walking around and I'm completely back to normal, which is bizarre when you think that my breathing is so hard when I'm running.
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