Just like last year I'm in a position where I am in urgent need of a blood test. At first I wasn't too keen at the idea of getting one (no, it's not because I'm afraid of needles) but over the past couple of days it's moved to the top of my to-do list. Recently my legs have been up and down but this week they hit rock bottom. For a few days they've been absolutely wrecked. The only way I can describe it is like going to the gym in the morning and blasting some weights then straight after going on the track and doing a 10k volume session at 800m pace then in the afternoon running a 10 mile tempo the day after a 5k race, that's how bad they feel. The worrying thing is the majority of my running over the past couple of weeks has been easy and the last time I completed a session was over two weeks ago, so it's not like I've been hammering myself.

A simple thing like walking around the house is making them feel tired. Going upstairs is the worst though! I get the top and you'd think I'd just raced over Parliament Hill. No word of a lie, a few times I've got to the top and had a sit down just because I don't think they can hold me up if I try and carry on. The other night I got into bed and I thought I had done a hard session they way they felt but all I had done was an easy 35 mins. I say an easy 35, but it didn't feel easy. I was barely moving, almost warm up pace, and they felt so heavy. I've never felt so mashed running so slow.

I've been chatting to Steve and he's been trying to figure out this mystery. We looked back at what I did and tried to see where it went all wrong. I did the British League a couple of weekends ago and felt tired there. The week leading into it I was tired and at the beginning of the week I didn't get much sleep which hadn't helped matters. Then the week before that I trained really hard and did that amazing session on the Tuesday. The week before that I was ill but sort of trained through it and then went to run the AAA's.  The week before that I felt good going into the Watford BMC but after the race is when the illness started. So I've gone from training through an illness, to racing, to training hard, to being tired, to racing again and now to be being super wrecked. I'm sure you'll agree, it hasn't been the healthiest 4 weeks I've ever had.

So taking a week or so of easy running was a good idea but even doing that is making me feel terrible. Steve is saying I'm showing all the signs of someone who is anaemic. The tiredness and lack of energy are classic signs. Although he's not totally convinced, he's also saying that week where I did the outrageous sessions could be a cause as I was overtraining. He thinks two sessions isn't enough to cause how I feel but Mark Miles is saying that it is. It was actually my idea to do that session and I did it without asking Steve which probably wasn't sensible. I spoke to Lindsay last week and he says that the session was the worst thing I could've done and a stupid thing to do. So there's a lesson learnt, never take things into your own hands. Then of course there was the illness. Although I'm over it there could still be something in my system making me feel this bad.

But there's no doubt in Steve's mind there's something wrong with my body. I've either got a deficiency in something, the illness still lurking in my body or just a simple case of overtraining. To find out what the deal is I'm in the process of trying to get blood tests off UKA or the uni. The uni have already told me I'll be able to get a haemoglobin test on Monday so I'm going in for that and a full blood test may be viable but will take a bit longer to set up. But I want this sorted sooner rather than later as I'm not going to train properly again until I feel fresher. Just sitting down and writing this blog my legs feel tired and I haven't run since Wednesday...not a good physical state to be in.

Hope you're doing better than I am. Take it easy,

Goolab xxx