Did ya hear that?

That was the sound of the Rachmeister crashing and burning.  That’s when a ‘real’ coach comes in handy.  Husbands aren’t real coaches, because God put them on this planet to be ignored, their advice overridden, that sort of thing.  So when I run, and run, and run, then run a bit more, something normally gives.  Actually, I was coping okay with the running, but when I flick a couple of ‘rikes’ in here and there (remember peoples, ‘rikes’ = ‘run/hikes’ – I’m not going to remind you again ), which add to my mileage, particularly when thrown in the day after my Friday long hill run, then a lack of sleep, elevated stress levels at work, and two children spreading their bertie-germs… well… boomfer.  The Rachmeister blows up.  Messy.  Actually, messy came simply in the form of me sleeping for the majority of Friday on one couch, Ella asleep on the other, and Louis crashed out on our bed.  Then every once and a while, there’d be a wee voice crying out for a fresh facecloth for their forehead (Louis’ temperature was hovering around 41 degrees – ouch)… back to sleep… woken again half an hour later by another child wanting a fresh facecloth… you get the idea.

I don’t know how my mother used to do it.  I remember getting the flu when I was a young’un, and vomiting loads.  Mum would always be there, and would sit with me through the night, etc etc.  Ella has never, ever vomited in her almost 11 years (I’d call that a miracle), and Louis just once in his classroom at school (thankfully not at home!!).  Pretty amazing really.  But yeah, a big ups to Mum for being such a caring, awesome Mum!!  Meanwhile, I was getting crabby on Friday, because there was no-one to care for the caregiver!

So our wee bout of whatever it was didn’t really amount to anything really exciting, other than to lay us low for a few days.  And tonight it appears both kids have relapsed – both have been asleep since they got home from school – wow, it’s lovely and quiet!!

Anyway, where is all this leading…

I haven’t run since last Wednesday.  Phew.  And I actually feel okay about it too.  I’m giving myself a week to ten days to recharge my batteries.  Okay, I lie.  I’m doing a tempo run tomorrow.  But yesterday, Graham went to the pool so I went with him.  I had a new pair of togs that I bought just after Wanaka, so they’d been unworn for six months.  Crikey, that’s a long time to be away from the chlorine after immersing myself in it so much last year!

My swim was crap with a capital C.  I did a paltry 1500m, but broken into 12 sets of 250m!!  That was all I could manage – 250m before wanting to cark out!  Six months ago I swam 3.8km.  One day ago I swam 250m.  Yeehah!  Oh man, what a bugger.

I still didn’t want to run today, so I went to Centennial on my way home from work and swam 2km without stopping.  Go figure.  How does that work?  And I felt bloody marvellous – my technique didn’t seem to fall apart, and I was just three minutes slower than my Half IM time at Ashburton.  I’ll take that after six months off swimming!

I hope Anita is proud of me – I plucked specially for the occasion, and I even elevated my quick tan line to go with it!