Training Log: FJohnson

Unfortunately, the pain didn't end at the finish yesterday. After a small lie down in the assembly field, there was a slow painful walk up to the car. Reckon I had the slowest split from assembly to car parking field. Managed to eat some food post race but around 6ish started feeling really sick. Proceeded to empty my stomach of the things I had eaten and then it started to really hurt. Probably the most excruciating pain I've ever had. Couldn't really lie down and my body kept wanting to throw up but there was nothing to get rid of in my stomach. Around 12:30, pain was too bad so a trip to Scarborough A&E it was. Luckily got pain and sickness relief with a blood test pretty quickly so the pain went away. But then we had a 9 hour wait in the coldest waiting room imaginable to see a doctor. First hand experience of what state the NHS is in huh. Still was probably worth the wait as there were concerns it could've been appendicitis, which wouldn't have been ideal. Luckily Doc was confident it wasn't but reckons it was gastroenteritis. Reminder kids always clean yourself properly when muddy, even if you're extremely tired. Good to get a blood test too, wasn't too much wrong except I had dry blood (dehydrated). Nice to know that my recent poor performances haven't been caused by a bigger underlying issue.


Obviously this meant I missed the relays. Especially gutted as my team got 3rd. Just seems to be the way at the moment. Surely my luck has to change at some point soon.

British long-20th
Well this was one long day, ending with a midnight trip to A&E.

Started off pretty safe just aiming to nail the first few. Miss read the contours to 3, thought I had stay higher but actually needed to drop. Sorted it out relatively quickly tho and found Spender coming out of it as I was arriving. Met up with him on the track but felt he was setting a pace that was a little too hard for my liking so backed off and took the straighter line from the buildings to 4. Through to 10 sorted to feel like I was running into the course, working well with Dan and was sitting nicely in 15th. Only a 1:30 behind Pete which I think is quite respectable but also given where I'm at, suggests I went out a bitt hard. Didn't enjoy the switch to more physical terrain here but was still feeling decent.
Out of 12 decided to go far right for the green rides, which tbh weren't really rides and probably a bad decision. But that wasn't the worst bit about that leg. Had another big fall on some logs, real OTB sorta crash. Felt super sick immediately as I landed so thought I might have actually broken something. Pain subsided after sitting in the mud for around 30s and felt fine enough to plow on. Quite a bad bruise on my left knee and big cut on the shin but no major damage.
Absolutely killed the rhythm tho and now I had lost Dan so the head started to drop. Caught by Joe at 18 but executed the Long leg better so got back ahead. Went for the left route through the tunnel which was fun.
Caught back up to Dan at 19 but going up to 20 really felt like the legs were gone. Scrambled down to the river but the mud slide climb up to 22 was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lights out day done, no gels or water left so was just a case of finish the race to try get some points.
Lost nearly 9 minutes of Dan from 23 to the finish, speaks volumes.
Got round, which was the main thing, and the only way I'll improve at these longs is to keep doing them.