After yet another sleepless night, I awoke with a headache, stiff neck, and huge black bags under my eyes. Nothing some make up and a nurofen couldn't fix before work though.
Overnight, I slept on the inflatable bed downstairs again so I could keep an eye on my dog, who has been recovering from a virus. Her bladder is back under control, but she's yet to have a bowel movement which has me concerned. She had the runs before, I would hate now for there to either be a complete blockage or just constipation. From one extreme to another. To deal with the bladder issues we had covered her bed with a tarp and a towel on top of that. While it made it waterproof, it also meant that every time she moved an inch it would make a crackling noise that would cause me to immediately awaken and jump up. I was prepared to rush her outside if necessary to avoid a mess from being made indoors. Unfortunately for me, every single time the bed crackled she was just re-adjusting her position. My garmin sleep patterns show some huge peaks for every time I woke up with a start, so needless to say I'm a bit knackered today.
Since she got sick I haven't been able to go to the gym or do a proper workout. My focus had been on keeping an eye on her. If she couldn't go for a walk, then neither could I. Today she had improved so much that I was able to leave her at home and go back to work for the day (yesterday I had worked remotely). That didn't stop me from coming home at lunch time to check on her, and I was relieved to see her come barrelling at me when I arrived. It's so nice to see her back to her normal, over-the-top energetic self. I'm still trying to keep her calm and resting most of the time though, I don't want her overdoing it.
This afternoon Mario asked if I wanted to go to the gym after work. I felt confident it would be OK to leave Missy alone a bit longer, so I picked him up on my way through and we headed down. I didn't have much energy but I knew that once I started running I would be OK.
I was right, and I had a pretty good run. I did 5km on the treadmill in 33mins, although it wasn't without its challenges. About 5mins in my left calf muscle hurt, and both of my feet hurt in the arches. It wasn't enough to stop me though and I was able to keep pushing. About the 20min mark I was surprised to see the time, and thought “you've only got just over 10mins left, you've got this”. At the 25min mark I could feel myself fatiguing, but just kept reminding myself that if I have any hope of doing 5km in under 30mins next year that I would need to keep pushing myself.
When I hit the 5km mark I was really proud. It was the kind of day where I would normally prefer to just go home and relax on the couch. Instead I had pushed through, burned some calories and got some running training in – a much more desireable outcome.
