'Character building'

Had 2 hours 45 mins in the schedule for today. Since the STaR was the Balmain Bungle and started at Brett Park in Drummoyne, elected to head off from home early and do it rather than join the squad at Centennial Park. We had social activities around lunch, so I wanted to give myself as much opportunity to recover as possible.

Left home at about 5:50 am and ran over. It was pretty humid, and I was sweaty pretty quickly. Ticked up 5k as I reached the start.

The STaR winds its way through Balmain before working its way through Rozelle, before hitting Leicchardt and heading down to Hurlstone Park and Canterbury, making its way back to Drummoyne via Summer Hill and Lilyfield.

I was feeling it a bit through Balmain, my troublesome tendon (the one that runs from inside the hip down the inside of the thigh - can never remember the name of the bloody thing - answers would be appreciated) giving me quite a bit of grief up and down the hills. James and I let the main group go on the west side of Victoria Road.

I started to battle a bit, and it was a struggle from about 20km onwards. At the canal end of the 5km course, I asked the guys I'd caught (including Johnny Dark) which was the quickest way back - on the east side of Iron Cove, or via the 5km course. The guys steered me up the 5k course, but it wasn't - no need to apologise, guys, we were all feeling it and were a bit befuddled, and I should have known the answer myself.

I ground to a halt just before the 3km marker of the 5k course, and started a very unpleasant, and at times weird, walk to Brett Park. It was 2:43:50 for 33.34km. I had to stop and sit down one or two times - Redback asked after me at one point as I sat in the shade about 1.6km from Brett Park (cheers!).

Believe it or not, I got up the hill and shuffled through a fair bit of the last km, and finally got
to Brett Park. Threw down a tin of Coke and was reasonably coherent again, much to the relief of a number of fellow CRs.

Who knows why it happened? I suspect eating on Saturday wasn't great, so there may not have been much in the tank at the start. Definitely took it too hard through Balmain. Not too bad now (9:10pm) - had a feed, bath and quick nap and was okay for lunch).

Happens from time to time. Sometimes I think it's good to have a training run where you really suffer from time to time - puts things into perspective. Sucks at the time, though.