Warwick Part III

Firstly this is from the first race with Tara ahead at this point.

On to Race 3 .... if we must

Saturday 3pm, and by this stange I was getting a little toey! I brought out my new black iPod Nano and meticulously selected 5 of the most pumpy, upbeat, heart kicking tunes I could find. What the hell, I even did a couple of warm up
exercises and was ready to hit this one at full speed.

Hang on, I have to go off at a tangent at this point and let me tell you about my Ipod Nano ... since I was in a hurry to be ready for Glenno to pick me up, I asked Katy to charge the the thing for me ....... I should have known better ....... so I had a look at my Ipod in the car, to find "a few extra hits" carefully selected by Katy and Mary. Actually I didn't mind starting the half marathon with the Macarena but I draw the line at the high pitched "la la la la la la" of Loving You...... anyway back to Race 3 ....

I got a clean start and was surpirsed at how fresh my legs felt and was moving fast (for me) with little effort. The music (of my choice) blasted into my head, which meant I couldn't hear myself breathe. To be more accurate, to listen to the fact I probably wasn't breathing. So after the first few turns, I was quickly approaching the gate out onto the open road approaching the first K marker when I was shot down. At first, it was a sudden sharp stabbing pain on the left side of my mid to lower back, which was immediately followed by an equally sickening thrust into the other side. Imagine a duck soaring up into the sky to be taken out by a hunter and so you have me the duck spiriling out of control headed straight back to earth. I pushed on for a short time before my chest had constricted so much that getting air into my lungs was near impossible. So I stopped.

Tara and Ciaren overtook me whilst I was doing my best to reinflate myself. I waved that I was ok (well sort of) whilst hanging onto the edge over an involuntary hyperventilating meltdown. Clairie was next to come by and I remember this moment clearly ........ she touched me behind my arm and said "come on, I'll run with you". So I did.

We basically held our positon as I sucked in and expanded my lungs back into shape. I was stretching out my diaphragm, which had kinda cramped, and it was getting easier to breath after awhile. Whilst doing this I was releasing "a few vocal pain noises" and trying to reassure Clairie that I was getting better despite this. A small kid just in front of us was terrified and I reckon I would have been too, if I was him. I worked through it and recovered, you have to do this in endurance running, it comes with the territory.

So with a the last 2K to go I did my best to encourage Clairie whilst she encouraged the kid in front. Poor little fella was probably half scared out of his wits.