Razors Edge

As Phil has touched on in his latest blog there is a fine line between training hard and just steeping over that line into braking the body down and going into the 'red zone', which inevitably you either get injured or ill....I just stood over the 'Razors Edge'!

It was a tough week but looking back being quite a loyal runner, if I say I will do something unless a really good reason pops up I will run. This was the case on Sunday morning when I woke with a sore throat which is my sign for backing off the training, the problem was I had agreed to run for Neath Harriers in a relay race (castles relays, 2 day event of 21 stages) on a tough old course and pulling out last minute would of really made a mess of all their hard work. So I turned up and planned to run as easy as possible without losing anytime, I was just going to sit on the lead runner and let him win as he would do the work but we wouldn't lose anytime on a course which in the past they have lost a lot of time.

It was a 11mile stage which rolls for 6miles and then about 4/5 miles up a grueling mountain, I set off and was comfortable behind a runner and all alone so I was making time on other teams but not having to push to hard. At 4miles he has a bit of a paddy and just stops......I was happy to go slower and again would just wait for the next guy so I jogged about 7min milling for a good mile or so before he realised I wasn't going to go any faster and put a little burst in, I jumped on the back to the bottom of the climb. Again about 400m in he pretty much stops again, he was starting to annoy me now as I don't want to mess about I just want to run a comfortable but decent pace and not lose anytime...I'm not here to 'race' especially after a really tough week for me. I had enough though and he was now getting on my nerves so I went to the front and wound it up till he dropped off, then I kicked harder until he was out of sight. By the end it wasn't far off 2 minutes. It was a hell of a climb though and even though I train on Margam mountain a lot this was a new breed of climbs altogether, it was something out of the Tour De France with some real nasty steep sections that could grind you to s holt if you don't keep pushing.

I paid the price for pushing on this unforgiving turrain and by 5pm my body was in a absolute mess!! my throat developed into what can only be described as 'sollowning razor blades' a head ache like Mike Tyson had smacked me round the skull and eyes burning worse than anything I have felt before. I was walking around like an 80year old as my bones ached and my muscles so sore that even when I was lying down it hurt.

I still don't think if I had my time again I would pull out from the team but I would have probably just told the bloke I was racing my plans and maybe I wouldn't of had to push my body to braking point....especially as I got disqualified anyway! I have no idea why, I am second claim member for the club and if you cant compete for them when the first claim club is not involved then what is the point of second claim teams. What's more confusing is if I get disqualified surely the team should be?? But the team were in the results but time taken off my leg.....if in the road relays Belgrave field a runner that shouldn't be running the team gets disqualified (rightly so) not just the runner so it seems a bit stupid to me but then there are a lot of things in running that are stupid so I'm not as surprised as I used to be.

Just for the record Phil Sly has the record on that course at 58minutes which is a hell of a time, but having trained with him for 3 weeks I can see why that course suits him down to the ground.

Simx