Running and running and running

So I ran the 21km in Knysna. My wife thought it was a bad idea. The tooth doctor saw no harm. I was there...

The only reason I considered running is that the most amazing thing happened to me on Thursday morning. I spent about 10 minutes psyching myself up to blow my nose, an activity that had grown to be intensely painful. Throwing caution to the wind, I gave it an incredibly hard blow. The result was that my gum burst, releasing all of my pent up pain in a stream of pus. A monster size abscess, that I did not know I had, was now no more.

Yeah, I know; it does not sound good, but boy did it feel wonderful.

Saturday morning saw me at the start of the Knysna half. I was excited and feeling good. I got off to a great start and ran 14 good kilometres at a great pace. I was still on track to beat my target when all of the wheels fell off. I just hit ran out of energy; the tank was completely empty. I guess my special tooth week had sapped all of my resources.

The next 7 kilometers, became a mental game of putting one foot in front of the other. It was incredibly tough and took me forever. I got to the end in a time that was well over my target but still a good bit under two hours. It was not a great run by any means, but in retrospect was brilliant considering the context.

There are two takeouts to this story; I need to treat the mental debarcle as a fantastic training opportunity for my Kilimanjaro climb at the end of the year and I must listen to my wife more often!