Post Glastonbury Long Run

Boy that was a hard run today.  It’s been three weeks since South Downs Marathon and training has taken a bit of a slump in that time.  This was mainly due to being away for the best part of a week at Glastonbury Festival, which I treat as my one chance in the year to really let my hair down (what little I have) and have a bit of a wild time without thinking about the next race goal.  It’s great that it fell exactly half way through my marathon challenge for the year.

 

So, on Wednesday 22 June I left Cambridge at 6am with two friends (Victor and James) for the 5 hour drive to Glastonbury.  The weather wasn’t looking too great for the following days, but I wasn’t going to let that get me down.  We had a bit of a trek to find a camping pitch for the three of us.  Despite the fact that the gates only opened at 9am, the site was virtually full by the time we actually arrived on the main festival site just after mid-day.  Once we were pitched it was time to go and have our first festival meal.  There’s a vast choice of food available at Glastonbury and it is possible to eat very well.  My first meal was a Lebanese meze of cous cous salad, stuffed vine leaves, feta and spinach filo pastry parcels, falafel and hummus.

 

Lovely Glastonbury mud

Later on the Wednesday we met up with two other friends, Simon and Abigail.  We then pretty much stayed together as a group of five throughout Wednesday evening and all day on Thursday, trudging through the slurry like Glastonbury mud between bars and various venues.

 

First pint of hot spiced cider

The festival really kicks off from Friday morning, and it looked like the weather was going to pick up.  The day started well on Friday, but rain returned in time for Morrissey’s set and continued throughout U2.  Fortunately, it stayed dry and warm on Saturday and the mud started to dry out.  This meant that for the whole day we had to wade through ever hardening mud, which would cling to boots adding a good kilo of extra weight to each leg.  This would be the closest I’d come to doing any training.

 

Sunshine over Glastonbury Festival

Thankfully, the ground was mostly dry by Sunday afternoon and it was possible to lie out on the baked earth in the sun.  It was on Sunday that I got to experience my two absolute highlights of the weekend: TV On The Radio, and Queens Of The Stoneage, who were amongst one of the best headline bands I’ve seen at the Festival.

 

After the long walk from our camping pitch to the car Monday morning, we then had the five hour drive back to Cambridge to face.  I was very grateful that Victor was doing the driving.  I got home muddy and tired, with a rucksack of dirty clothes to wash and a tent to erect, hose down and dry off before putting it away.  That evening I had an early night to try and make up for only getting about 5 hours sleep each night for the previous five nights.  Then it was back to work as usual on Tuesday.  I felt as if I was working through a sleep deficit for the entire week and was very grateful for a long lie-in Saturday morning – to think I’d actually contemplated going to Parkrun.

Since Tuesday I’ve done more kettlebelling than running, which is a reverse to the norm for me.  I was a little apprehensive about today’s long run.  I knew it was going to hurt, but with my next marathon taking place in two weeks time I had no option but to get out for a 20 mile run.  I opted for the 20 mile loop via the villages of Bottisham, Swaffham Prior and Lode and finishing with an 8 mile run along the river.  It was a hot day, with temperatures in the mid 20s, and with very little shade on the route.  By mile 12 my legs were starting to hurt.  I tried to take in the sights along the river to take my mind off the run.  By the last 2 miles of the run I felt as if I was practically crawling along and the desire to just walk was overwhelming.  But I managed to dig deep and it was a huge relief to eventually find myself back at my front door.   For the rest of this week I need to focus on some good quality running to get back in to better shape for the Fairland’s Valley Marathon on 17 July.

 

Life on the Rive Cam