First pic taken 15mins into Wednesdays run whilst I was feeling good. Crashed 10mins later, had to walk most of the rest (although did run the final 15-20mins of the hour I had). Culmination of a few “not quite rights”…booked GP appointment and had bloods today 🤞 Also on Wednesday my little run club finally got a flag 🤣🤣

@Caroline Claassen yup… Although results came back (in ONE day…I’d been told might be a week or two!) and I have a couple of low markers so another test scheduled for two weeks and then they’ll make a diagnosis. Looks like I have something wrong / or a simple deficiency rather than heat / exertion based 😅 I’d quite like if it was something that can be fixed by a magic tablet rather than a muscular or nervous system thing which is “you’re simply actually pretty close to breaking down constantly…deal with it, you’ve mostly got away with it” 🤞

@David Carr I’m in a similar position…I’ve been very performance driven for years…my whole running persona has been about getting quicker at every distance constantly. A catastrophic DNF I had a month or two back (and the realisation that recovery won’t be instant…I’ve got neural pathways to rebuild* 😅) has put me on a journey of lots of introspection and thinking about why I do this thing. I want to run FOR EVER. Is what I realised my main driver is…and enjoy the journey. So I decided to support a “slower” runner through her debut ultra journey (which has been awesome so far, despite her start to training being injury impacted)…and I’ve already decided that next springs marathon is going to be more of a “run this comfortably, and enjoy the experience” rather than chasing further below my 3:30 benchmark. I’m hoping / a goal / target is to rediscover a bit more of the joy of simply running…and I expect that a drive for performance will follow on again soon after. (Having said that, I have entered a 10k in November which will be ALL about trying to run faster than I’ve ever ran 10k before 🤣) *Calf fasciculations for many hours after every run is quite disconcerting when you’ve experienced a 3+hr bout of cramping 😱 I’m hyper aware of it and constantly think I’m 5mins away from cramping up again…but it’s nothing to worry about, and will gradually reduce over a few months apparently.

Flex - 1 - committed to a prehab/recovery for lower calf issue picked up last week…followed it, felt benefits, going to carry on a few weeks to continue to build strength & stability in that area before switching to more generic prehab work. 2 - back up to 3 strength sessions 🥳 3 - had first truly enjoyable run in a couple of weeks (after minor calf issue and also a bit of illness) - getting ready to reinvigorate 🚀 Fail - There is no fail ! Just a vicarious one…the friend I’m supporting through her debut ultra in September had an innocuous fall at a race a week and a half ago, it ballooned and bruised up, turned out she has low level tendon damage and unable to run for another couple of weeks..which was going to make things difficult, she’s only just got enough time to “be ready”. BUT…the race has been put back 2 weeks, so barely lost any time !!

Another little jaunt off road at the weekend rediscovering some old trails.

@Ellie Mackin Roberts I’ve not actually tried the gels (i specifically went with a fuel that forces me to take on liquid as I have a habit of under hydrating and wanted to remove that from the table on longer efforts..and also enable “constant sipping” as opposed fo the timing associated with draining a whole gel every so often)…but I would guess the difference is the consistency. I know someone who has tried the SIS Beta fuel gels and they say they are very liquidy in comparison to some thicker gels, but they can’t be as liquid as when diluted into 500ml…it’s basically water consistency. Very easy to take in. I’ve got a 2hr+3hr broken double run on Sunday, will be testing again!

@Nelson Crespo Beetroot is INCREDIBLE 😬 Used it for all my good 10k and half’s over the last couple of years. I drink a big carton of the “non sport specific” Beet It (which has a bit of apple juice in to take the edge off the flavour) during the week, then a shot the day before and “about 90mins ahead of race finish time”… Need to avoid caffeine gels in that 90minute window (caffeine negates some of the positive effects)…unless needing a quick pick-up…but the results are pretty much unquestionable in terms of it being easier to maintain hard effort. I read a ton of the science papers 2-3 years ago as the claims seemed incredible, and it seems Beetroot is as magical as creatine !!