May 28th, the day after…

It’s 11:25am and I’m catching up on my diary. I didn’t do an entry yesterday because I was so tired mentally and physically from my long run. I was up and out early as I knew it would be a long day and Claire had warned me it was going to get warm. I parked at my usual spot near the Hare and Hounds and felt something wet on the side of my face. I had a nose bleed, a bad one. The blood was pouring out and it wouldn’t stop. This was at 8am and I was wondering how I was going to run with a nose bleed. I looked through my car for something to stop it and found some tissues. After around 10 minutes I managed to stop my nose bleeding and I was able to go on my run. I set off up Heights Road with a route in mind but this changed as I went along. The first change was after the Mytholmroyd Community Centre. Instead of going up the Calder Valley fell race route up to Erringdon Moor and cutting across the edge of the moor I went up a more direct route and found a nice little downhill that cut out a mile at least and I was back on Cragg Vale Road and heading towards the Robin Hood pub. Behind here there is a climb I’m familiar with so straight up and down I went before carrying on Cragg Vale Road towards the Hinchcliffle Arms and up towards Stoodley Pike. It was getting a lot warmer now despite it still being early in the morning and I was sweating a lot. I got up though and took the shortcut over the moor to Stoodley Pike.

Whilst it’s a shorter route it’s still steep so I got some good elevation in. after Stoodley I descended to London Road and run back onto the Hebden reverse route. I carried on this route until I got to Lower Slack where I took a detour down to Lumb Bank and back up to Heptonstall and on to Midgehole. At Midgehole I was shattered. My legs has gone a long time ago and I was running on sheer adrenaline. I could have carried on the Hebden route but I took the harder option and went on the Heptonstall Festival route. I knew this route until I got to the top near High Brown Knoll. Luckily for me there was another runner passing who pointed me in the right direction and I made it to High Brown Knoll with no problems. My only concern at High Brown Knoll was distance. I went the most direct route as I wanted to get under 30k around 18.6 miles and I only had 1 ½ mile to play with. I was hoping this would be enough. I descended to the Hare and Hounds pub and made it with 0.03 mile to spare. You couldn’t get much tighter.

I had run 18.6 miles and climbed over 4,900ft. I was destroyed. I messaged Claire to say that I was ok as she was worried about me as she always is. My new Inov8 shoes were pretty much useless. Claire had joked about me wearing high heels but it felt like I was! There is no stability in the heel so I was slipping all over on the downhill and combined with the soft cushioning this meant I was all over the place on downhills and I had to take it very easy or I would have fallen over. I had just enough water on me although I had a lot in my car so I wasn’t too worried. The sun had come out as Claire had said it would and I was drenched in sweat and red hot. I was drained physically and mentally and It took me ½ hour to recover and compose myself enough for the drive home.

Once home the effort from my run washed over me and I was gone. I had nothing left mentally or physically but I managed to go and get my unlucky lottery and a bottle of gin as recommended by Claire. I got home and had a very large gin and tonic and after that I don’t remember a thing. I don’t remember going to bed but I can’t have done anything wrong as I haven’t upset anyone this morning.

I woke up before 4am this morning and decided to go to Ladstone Rock on Norland Moor as I haven’t been for a while and I had some other jobs to do which I wanted to get out of the way before it got busy. I got to Ladstone around 6:30am and sat by the rock watching the world go by and then I had a nice walk round Norland Moor.

Time was ticking by so I went back to my car and got some petrol on the way home before going to pick up my new medication the beta blockers. I don’t know if they’re going to do me any good for my headaches, I don’t think they will, but I’ll try them and see if anything happens. Then it was home, hang my washing out and arranging my disability assessment. By 10am I’d done all the jobs I wanted to do and I had the rest of the day to myself. I still felt tired and worn out from the previous day so I wasn’t in the mood for doing any reading or anything too intense. I decided to go for a walk and relax in the sun. I went down to a local, little beauty spot and found a place high above everybody else where I could relax away from everyone and everything for a couple of hours. I fell asleep and when I woke up I felt better for it.

It’s now 6:41pm and I feel tired and fuzzy again. Another day has gone past when I’ve done nothing and achieved nothing apart from dwell on what I see as issues and problems in my life. There just going round and round in my head with no solution to them. Most of them are probably just in my head and will disappear once I get back to uni and have something to do and focus on. The problem is I’m struggling to focus on anything at the moment due to my headaches but I hope this changes when I get back to uni. I feel a bit punch drunk right now but I’m hoping a good nights sleep will help and I’ll feel better today. Having nothing to do and not a lot of people to talk to doesn’t help. It drains you mentally and all the problems and issues you feel you have are magnified ten or a hundred times and become major issues and problems that won’t go away. I’m hoping things start to get better next week when we can start to meet people again.