5km Honest Lawyer

8km is what is on my program for today. I really wanted to walk in the new walk series that has started up so I had earlier promised my coach that I would continue on and do a total of 8km.

By Sunday evening I felt the first signs of a migraine starting. I took all the right medicines but I was not quick enough and so it thumped all night and all of today. Now I know some of you will be thinking.....why on earth is she still going out training? let alone racing if she has a migraine. Well I can give you two reasons........1st - I have been suffering these now for 14 years and have build up a fairly high pain tolerance and have learnt to block out the pain with meditation .... 2nd - often when I train hard it actually stops the migraine even my Dr confirmed this as the faster my blood pumps it forces the blocked capillary to unblock and as I take anti inflammatory's it reaches the inflamed area quicker.

ok so this is a gamble and I cant always guarantee that it will stop it or that I can walk fast or finish. Tonight I was lucky in one sense....I finished the 5km and in a record time.....but my 3km was much slower and I did have to stop after the 5km for a couple of mins as I was in pain.

It was a good course. We started at the Honest Lawyer Pub and headed out along the road towards Monaco. (Monaco is a small area that is tidal and one side of this wee peninsular is cut off at high tide - so most have co owned driveways with their back neighbours so they can get in and out of their homes at high tide) We walked off the road and down on to the sand road - the tide was low - this a compacted sand roadway with shells and stones knobbling along on it - we walk on this for about 300m and then pop back up onto the road way again. We go round the furtherest point of the peninsular and head along to the grassy domain park where the turn cone is....then we return the same way we came. The bit of road way around the back to the turn is narrow and has a terrible camber to it....so for about 1km it is hard going as you are not working straight. We had a good wind to tackle tonight too...but that is typical for this area.

I started out strong and felt good. I picked my way across the sand and stones and popped up on to the round...when I rounded the point I went head on in to the wind and so had to work hard to keep my pace up. Eventually the camber of the road got to me and it was hard to keep up a good rhythm when you felt like your left leg was 3 inches longer than the other. Turning the cone I knew I had the camber to the other leg so I slowed up a little until I hit the sand again. I picked up the pace back into the head wind again with the last 1km to finish the 5km series. About 500m from the finish line my head really started to hurt, I was breathing hard and I knew my heartrate was higher than normal. I started feeling that horrid feeling - nausea - I figured that throwing up at the finish line would not be a good look so I slowed up for a bit.......I crossed the line and opted to stop for a moment to gather my breath. Plus everyone was wanting to shake my hand as I had set a new course record. It was then that I looked at my watch and saw that I had done the 5km in 28:29mins......wow!!!

5km Honest Lawyer series

Now I had made a promise to my coach that I would carry on and do 3km so that I still completed my 8km that was on my training prog .... so I cleared my watch and started a fresh session and headed out. I was much slower for this and I needed to be....while I walked on for the 3km it gave me time to focus on my breathing and to get my mind settled again. I finished my 3km in 18:27

making my total time for the 8km 46:56......yeah I am really happy with that.

3km continued training for 8km