Worthing 20

This one didn’t go quite to plan I’m afraid

After feeling well recovered from Tuesday’s session on Thursday and Friday I was quite surprised to find Saturdays runs a real chore. Legs felt fatigued and a general lack of energy hit me so was a little concerned that I was a bit depleted. Resting HR was okay though so not overly concerned. Rather than sensibly doing a bit of carb loading though I decided the best course of action was to stuff myself with sweets……..yes I know – shocking willpower!
Woke up early this morning for the drive to Worthing and felt absolutely terrible with a stomach ache, feeling a bit sick and still fatigued. Considered not bothering but decided to head out hoping I’d feel better as the morning progressed.

Stomach was still not great before the race so took some imodium to give myself a chance of finishing without a pitstop and set off. The plan was go for the same session I did at Bramley which was 6 miles steady / 6 MP / 1HMP / 6MP /1HMP so I set off for 6 miles at around 6m/m.
The pace felt quite easy but I wasn’t feeling comfortable and when the Garmin buzzed to tell me my 6 miles were up and I had to put some work in I very nearly didn’t bother! For about 10 seconds I just couldn’t motivate myself to up the pace (I guess knowing that it wasn’t going to be a fun 14 miles ahead!)
I decided at this point that I was just going to up the pace to a decent effort but not worry about the structured JD tempo session and just play it by ear.
I was in 8th at this point and up’ed my pace to just under 5:30m/m pace and started to pick off a couple guys. My HR was around 6-7bpm below MP effort but I was really struggling to do much more spending most of my time burping and feeling queazy! Continued this way until around 12 miles when I caught the lead group of 4 chaps who had also picked up their pace a little. It was only when I passed them and one of the group came with me ( Joe Corbett – NEB) that I actually managed to put in a couple of miles close to my target MP.
Pulled a gap on Joe over the next couple of miles but started to feel even more sick until mile 18 when I had to take my HR strap off due to discomfort and had a burp/vomit moment which I won’t go into details about! Hung on for the last 2 miles to take the win but was relieved to just get over the line without being sick over a marshall

(looking relieved at the finish!)

Full results can be found here

The Garmin stats below show that the average for the 14 miles was about 5:26m/m pace (around 10s a mile slower than I planned) and my HR stayed around 6 beats below MP effort the whole way. Some of the slower miles were due to a bit of a head wind along the sea front where I just didn’t have the strength to push on.

Will need to keep an eye on how I’m feeling over the next couple of days, I know the reason for all the stomach issues ( no more sweet binges I promise! ) but not sure about the general fatigue levels – next week was meant to be another big mileage week before the taper but I may need to revise this if I don’t start feeling more “up for it”