Spanish belly

Sunday  16th August

Sitting on the couch a bit glum. Tummy started to give me a lot of trouble last Wednesday on the way down from Dublin airport. Aoiffe had picked up a serious vomit and tummy bug the night before we left Malaga to fly back to Dublin and it was only a matter of time before I picked it up. I am probably getting over it at this stage – Aoiffe not as much.

In terms of running over the last two weeks I didn’t do a huge amount in particular during the week of my holidays principally because I didn’t expect I had to as I had put down some very big weeks in the lead up to the break. I ran 4 miles and around 7 miles in Madrid on the Monday and Tuesday and another 7 miles and 4 miles in Toldeo. To be honest I have liked to have done more running but I got a pain of a headcold on the Friday and that laid me low over the weekend during the trip to Granada. Sound like a bit of a crock don’t I?

In Malaga on the Tuesday the cold had cleared up and I ventured for a 80 minute run on the Tuesday morning last week. All my running had to take place at around 6.50 am in the morning so warm was the weather during the day with temperature’s hitting highs of 40 degrees. Even at 6.50 am in the morning it was still in the mid to high 20 degrees so the pace had to be slow. I also ran my time using a stopwatch rather than a garmin.

Nevertheless I felt in terms of keeping the legs fresh I had done enough to allow me to run the Clonmel half marathon but the old Spanish belly intervened on Wednesday on the way down. I did run 8.5 miles on the Thursday in Charleville at a relaxed pace of 8.20 per mile but I should have worried when the effort felt harder than it should have. I had no energy on the Friday and things worsened over the weekend with my system acting in a “irregular “ way. Hence no running today in Clonmel and only 17 miles this week and 23 miles the week before.

We will see what the rest of the week brings.