Bad luck comes in threes (hopefully)

I didn't actually provide a race recap from Bridges, but it didn't go well.  This what I posted on Strava after the race:

I don't know whether I sabotaged this race myself or it was just bad luck. Against my better judgement, and because I was bored with tomato based sauces, I cooked a pasta cabonara last night. Only 100ml of cream so it shouldn't have been a problem. But ... I have been drinking 200ml of beetroot and apple juice each morning for the past three days with no problems whatsoever. I was though having it after my run and after breakfast but it didn't even cross my mind that this would make a difference. So this morning I got up at 5.20am so that I could have my beetroot juice by 5.30 as the nitrate concentration peaks 2.5 hours after drinking it. Because I was up early enough to digest it, I then decided to have my usual pre long run/long race Up and Go.


The result was some sort of vile cocktail in my stomach, it almost immediately started churning. I then had nausea and had to go the toilet twice. I felt so bad I went back to bed for an hour, after which I felt a bit better but still had to go the loo a couple more times.

Drove to the race but while walking there, I needed to go again and completely lost any fluid that was still in my body. I had a couple of small drinks of water and a Gatorade pre race fuel but didn't want to take too much on board.

Felt Ok on the warmup and even for the first 2-3km of the race but really struggled from 4km onwards as I seemed to have no energy or power and simply couldn't run any quicker.

Just became a matter of finishing as quickly as possible rather than racing and I probably would have been better off staying in bed.

I could have picked any random day over the past month and run better and quicker than I did today, but unfortunately today was the day of the race.
 
I finished in 36:52 which is almost a minute slower than last year and about 90 secs slower than the pace I thought I was in shape to run.  I got to 4km in 14:01 and then the wheels fell off.  5km in 17:44 so the 2nd 5km took me 19:08 for a very ugly negative split.
 
I took a day off from running on the Monday after the race because I still wasn't feeling that flash and was back to normal by Thursday and was planning a longish tempo run on Friday.  However, it was on the Thursday evening that I stuffed by back as outlined in my last post.
 
A week off from running, three visits to the physio and one to the osteopath and I was starting to feel like myself again, although I was lacking the motivation or desire to get out and do an interval session any time soon.  I was however, once again planning a tempo run for this Friday morning.
 
Yesterday (Wednesday), I met up with Simon Elliott, Jordan and Ben for our Wednesday run which is usually 17-20km at an ok pace around 4:20.  My back was feeling great, the company was good and at 4:20s per km the conversation was easy.
 
We turned off from the usual riverside Burswood path and were running towards Great Eastern Highway as Simon was taking us on a different loop through Rivervale, Carlisle and East Vic Park when I managed to collide with metal bollard in the middle of the path.  I'm sure I saw it, I just wasn't concentrating and misjudged running past it.  It had a 2cm lip around the top of it but I collected more than that.
 
It was about quad height and it basically knocked me flying. It was such a surprise that before I realised that it bloody hurt, I was thinking what the hell was that noise and why am I on the ground.

Took me a few minutes of rolling around moaning and groaning before I could get up. It was still very painful but I figured that it was best to keep moving and not let it stiffen up.

Took a little bit of skin off my elbow too. Rest of the run was pretty uncomfortable, particularly uphill as it felt like I was running with a massive cork (which I probably was).

Since then it has been ice and anti inflamms.

I tried to get out to meet up with Rob for our regular run and succeeded but only ran as far as Mends Street and back.

Soreness in my leg was causing me to run with a bit of a limp (pronounced at the start, slight once it had warmed/loosened up a bit). Having stuffed myself previously from running with an altered gait due to injury, I am pretty wary about doing the same again.

Had to stop for a pit stop at Mends Street and it stiffened up even over that short stop.

I'll just keep things ticking over short and slow until it is better. On a positive, my back is feeling nearly 100% now.

Physio tomorrow morning. It was a follow up re my back, but I think it will now be more about my leg. 

Just about all my upcoming racing plans are out the window.  I missed Challenge, was considering the Gallipoli Run but that is this weekend so that is out, the 32k is no chance (long runs were supposed to start after Bridges and I haven't run further than 21km since the marathon in January) and now I can't even run the 10k which is held on the same day.

I'm entered in the Run for a Reason on 27 May so I figure that another week to get this leg right will still give me four weeks before the race (so basically three weeks of harder training) to try and get back to where I was before Bridges.  That's if I manage to stop hurting myself ...