Saturday 17 May 2008

Ouch!

So what's with the picture I hear you ask. Well, it's how I'm walking at the moment thanks to rather too much abrasion around the family jewels. It's bl**dy painful!

Once again, it's my skins causing the problem and I think I'm either going to chop them off at the knees (they're the full length tights) or buy another pair of thigh length ones and keep the full length ones for post-race recovery.

The run itself was good although I did have a rather low point up on the Larig Mor (?sp) when my energy levels took a bit of a dive and I was reduced to a slow shuffle. Fortunately they picked up again a bit and I jogged in with Morgan over the last 4 miles or so and I felt pretty good by the time I reached Fort William.

Overall happy with my time (7:15) for this stretch but I must admit there were times when my energy levels were low that rather negative thoughts about the whole WHW race crept into my head and it started to seem like sheer madness. Such is the madness of ultra racing it's hard to know sometimes what is a negative thought and what is just a moment of rationality. ;-)

I'm still going to have to fiddle with my nutrition. The mars bars work, after a fashion but they were really an experiment in self sufficiency and I've no plans to run on the 21st in a self sufficient manner and there's no way I could eat them for a full 95 miles. Today I took a leaf out of JKs book and had some grapes on the way round. After three claggy mars bars, the sweetness & freshness of a nice bunch of grapes was just so wonderful! There's definitely going to be in the support vehicle on the day.

5 comments:

Subversive Runner said...

Hey dude,

Interesting comments about the Skins. I was gonna buy some. Might just stick with the Tracksters now, what d'ya reckon?

Tim said...

I reckon compression tights probably still have a role to play in reducing muscle swelling (something that tracksters won't do). I think it's just a problem with the full length ones. Ian & JK haven't mentioned any problems with their short skins so I think I'm going to try them (or perhaps another brand).

ianbeattie1 said...

Dave & Tim - I've only been using the Skins for a couple of weeks (the short, above the knee ones) but I've found them to be absolutely fantastic. I often have a bit of a niggle around my groin, but I don't notice it at all with the Skins. I wore them for the 35 mile run yesterday and, despite the 41 miles the day before, my legs felt great. I would recomend them.

Debs M-C said...

Why don't you try wearing shorts on top - to stop them slipping?

I swear by skins, but mine slip a bit too.

Did you start at Bridge of Orchy?

Tim said...

Not sure how that would make any difference Debbie (although I note that the other men seem to be doing that). I had assumed it was because they were "over-endowed" (unlike my petite package). ;-)

I'll try the above knee ones first and if that doesn't work on it's own, maybe with some shorts.

And yes, I did start at BoO. Can't believe that I didn't mention that. Going senile. ;-)