Having to leave the track

Should you go to track training if you have a 10k race the day after? One might say no. But I was tempted to do it anyway. I hadn’t felt good while running for a while. During the heat wave, the only one I had done had been the Bethel race, and that had been a bit of a scorch fest. It had been fun, but I hadn't felt dynamic. And when it cooled down and I could go for a leisurely run again, it just didn't feel right. My legs were made of lead.

Given the forecast for the track was lots of cloud and even some rain, I thought the conditions would be perfect. And on the track, I tend to feel quite good. I thought it would be nice to feel good while running before the race, to boost my confidence. So I went.

When I left the house it was indeed beautifully cloudy, but I soon left the cloud and ended up in the sun. I was a bit worried about that, given I had got burnt in the hills over a week earlier. I had brought sunscreen, though. Factor 50! I had tried to buy sunblock, but for some strange reason, supermarkets seemed to have sold out…

I gave myself a generous dose of sunscreen and got onto the track. It was quite hot. I was a bit worried about that.

After the warming up, the session was: run a kilometre, rest a minute, run 400 meters faster, then jog for 200 m to do it all again after 2.5 minutes. And then twice more.

After the first set I knew I needed to do something about the sun. I had some tape in my bag, and decided to stick that to my shoulders. It would probably block the sun quite effectively. This took me more than the 2.5 minute break, so I missed the first lap of the second set. But when we stopped after the second kilometre (600m for me), I saw I was blistering in spite of sunscreen and tape. And the sun did not show any signs of disappearing. I decided to abort. I had only done the warmup, the drills, and 2 km, but so be it! This wasn't healthy.

I was really hoping that the day after, the weather forecast would actually be correct! Because one thing was sure: I was not going to run 10k in the sun…

In full screen mode you can see the blisters