Sandringham Half – and Fried Chicken

I’ve just eaten my first KFC in two years.

I get a yearning for it once in a while because I have this childhood memory – probably a false one – that it was a tasty treat of a meal. When I was a kid, we used to have the occasional takeaway – pizza, fish and chips or a Kentucky. I don’t think we had a Maccies because we didn’t eat beef and their menu was limited then. It was a treat because our usual food at home was Indian, so it was like dialling out for an English.

I have always enjoyed good food so I don’t know why my tastebuds try and do a swerve every now and then. They seem to forget the most recent experience and go back to a youth when they probably weren’t all that developed anyway. The takeaway was a last minute decision as I came off the motorway from my drive back from Norfolk. It was lunchtime, I was peckish, Anne wasn’t in (it’s not a guilty secret by the way – she knows and rolls her eyes at me in amusement). But it was a long drive – almost five hours, including a pit stop. So it was a good opportunity to scratch that itch and I think I’m sated now, for another two years.

It was Salena, with whom I ran the Sandringham Half yesterday, who got me into running in the first place around ten years ago. That was a weekend where we’d had a drunken Saturday night catching up, and then ran on Sunday morning. Or rather a puffed out effort around Sefton Park in Liverpool, in some sort of a run/walk motion. Yesterday I felt almost as wiped out as the first time, around a bigger park, the grounds of the Sandringham Estate. When Salena had done this run two years ago, Wills and Kate were apparently waving the runners off on the starting line. This time there were no royals, or they had melted in the heat, as we began trudging over the scorched brown grass along a very bendy route. It was fairly flat at least, with a few inclines, but. It. Was. Hot. And although I’d run in quite warm weather for 11 miles last week, this had definitely gone up a few notches, around 28 degrees C according to Salena’s car thermometer.

There were some shady bits, and some trails which would have been rather nice if I’d had the energy to lift my feet up over the tree roots but, from about mile four, I was wiped out, so by that time I was stumbling and almost fell over about three times. The odd thing was, my body wasn’t tired as such, borne out by the fact that I have no aches and pains today, but I just felt exhausted. I tried to do what I had suggested to my big sister on the Saturday Parkrun in Leicester – go as slow as your breathing feels comfortable. It was a conversation about trying to build up the miles in her legs and I was suggesting she try for a 10K race some time. She might do, when she retires and has a bit more time. My breathing only seemed to feel comfortable when I was walking. But no. That wasn’t strictly true. I was actually running, when I was running, at 10.30/11 minute mile pace, so I could have gone much slower, given that I can pootle along at 12.00 mm pace very easily. It’s very hard to do in a race though, because you’re surrounded by other runners. Even if you’re letting them pass you, you still end up trying a little bit harder than you would if you went out alone. I ended up with a 2:35:19 which is a little disappointing after my 2:16:40 for Helsby Half at the beginning of the year.

But I will just chalk it up to experience and hope that Yorkshire isn’t so hot when I do my marathon. What I can take away are some good points and some things to work on, shall we say.

I’m glad, very glad that I took two sachets of dioralyte and had them during the run with the water given out. Because I was dripping sweat, I knew I’d need to replenish the salts and that meant that I didn’t have a debilitating headache afterwards, which is my usual reward for serious dehydration.

Err, I think that was the only good point.

Alongside my ‘too fast’ running, I walked too soon, when I could have kept running a bit longer. Despite telling myself various things such as ‘get to the next mile marker before you take a walk break’, I often gave up much sooner. I still don’t have much of that mental toughness, and I’m struggling to work out ways to strengthen it, because I’ve found myself in these hard situations a few times and it seems I’m a bit of a flake. I guess the fact that I’m constantly willing to put myself into these hard situations is a good thing but I would like a little bit more staying power.

However, onwards and upwards. I was reminded in an email yesterday, that it is sixteen weeks until the Yorkshire marathon, so I’m glad to have got the KFC yearning out of the way, as I shall be aiming to make my body into a temple for a little while.