snatching victory from the teeth of defeat

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Type:	Run - General
Duration:	1:10:48
Distance:	8.81 mi

9:46, 11:03, 12:16, 01:20, 03:20, 04:16, 04:40. No, not some crazy split times but the time I went to bed, finally got up and in between are the rough times that AJ woke me up last night. These three days were supoosed to be quite simple. I would have a window of opportunity of about 75mins in which to run. I would need to drop AJ at day care which is 10km from my office. So I'd run 10km per day and as long as AJ slept well through the night it would be a relatively easy three days. Last night did not go quite to plan. Today I suffered a proper hit of mental fatigue. Physically I am finding Janathon tough but the physics is straightforward. If my body does not break and I keep it topped up with fuel I should be able to get the miles in. Just turn the legs over. Mentally it is not so simple. I was looking at three days in which my average mileage was going to drop (albeit drop to more than I was planning on just 12 days ago), the humidity is still energy sapping and I'd had a shit-house sleep. Add to that the prospect of a churn from Chatswood to the City which was hardly an insipring run.

A quick tangent. How soon we get complacent! The drudgery that is a run takes me across the Harbour Bridge, where I look at at the Opera House and the ferries coming and going on the harbour in the early morning sun.

Where was I? Right, mental fatigue. Only a few km in I was having difficulty collecting my thoughts. Whatever I was thinking about would morph into thoughts about how buggered I felt. Not good. I felt confused and muddled as I tried to decide which way to run to work. Not good.

I had tipped back a pint of berocca and a bottle of Gatorade before heading out and picked a path that took in a few water bubblers. Still drenched, but today I thought I was on top of my hydration. At the end of the bike-path leg I decided to head over a golf course to get down to the Bridge. And as I did, my head started to clear. The bridge, steps-to-steps is 1.5km. I was over 10km on approach. I did the simple maths; with a small extra loop after the bridge I could clock up 14km. I was a couple of km in credit from yesterday so I would be able to maintian the 10miles per day average. Go me!

Feeling as if I had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, as I made my way along the Barangeroo wharf I started to work on the maths for the remainder of the week. Maybe I can keep it up. Maybe. And I averaged 4.59min/km, which I was also pleasantly surprised about.

And that made me feel a bit better.