Slightly Broken

Well that was a hard slog. The 12 miles of Stage 4 of the Cotswold Way Relay 2016 has broken me. I had a pace in mind and for the early part I was on or around it. I knew I was going to go out of the comfort zone as it was my longest race of the comeback so far. And so that came to pass.

I had a wobble around the 7 mile mark, a slight twinge from the left calf. I carried on pushing as I worked my way through the field and had a few runners in sight. I chased hard and was chipping away at the distance between us. It was Cooper's Hill that really did for me though. When I got to the top cramp hit big time on the left calf. I knew I didn't have too far to go but neither could I really run properly anymore. As the minutes slipped away and putting more work on the right calf that went too but not quite as badly. I was unable to stride out on the remaining sections of downhill and lost time but made it to the finish which is the important thing, albeit with the loss of a few minutes.

My left calf is really rather broken now and I can hardly walk - I'm not sure how I'm going to manage tonight's Harvester Orienteering Relay. I reckon I have about fourteen hours to get myself mended and I'm really not sure how I'm going to manage that...