Back to trail running in the hills with JFW

The farthest I have run this year. 

I begged we run slow as I knew the impact of LEL was still affecting my body, a cold sore in my lower lip is a very reliable clue.

To his credit he ran slow all day, chatting all the way. I just managed to match his pace.

When we were running for about an hour he asked how I was doing and I answered I was doing just fine. That I wouldn’t mind running another hour or two as far as we kept the same pace. That was about half of my talk for that whole hour. The rest was him talking and talking about things I didn’t understand (limited blood in my brain affects my capacity to understand English, or any other language for that matter).

My answer was an honest one though. I was talking very little but with honest words. Until the “big” “climb” in the middle of the run came. About 20 minutes after I felt so optimistic. By the time we got to the top of the steep section I was done. Properly done. More than honest, those were delusional words.

That meant I went even quieter than in the first hour. JFW kept chatting away, saying “good morning team” to everyone we crossed paths with. I wasn’t even saying good morning to any of them. Politeness gets out of the window when I’m tired. And I was very tired.

JFW noticed my silence and inferred my struggle. He wasn’t tired enough so he was polite (JFW was polite to me!!!) and asked whether I prefer to go straight to the car or to take a longer route. 

I broke my vow of silence to just say “I had enough now”. 

We went straight. Which meant downhill. Which was great despite feeling in my feet every single irregularity in the ground. 

I thought we were about to get to the car when I saw a “climb” in front of us. In the profile is the last one but at the moment I didn’t know it was the last one. I couldn’t recognise it from previous runs (like 90% of the route), it looked long and steep for me. 

That felt hard. JFW asking me questions. Me questioning why I was doing this and forcing myself to keep running. I wanted to avoid having to walk at any price. My arrogance almost killed me. 

JFW kept talking all the way to the car, in the car all the way to Cobham, all the time while we were having a coffee at Gail’s, all the way back home. 

By the time we were arriving home my Garmin watch showed a message I had never seen before. “Higher than normal stress detected. Start a breathing exercise to relax?”.

While JFW was talking I tried to take a picture of the message. Between nodding to him to pretend I was listening and having to take my phone out but the time I was ready to take the picture the message was gone. Anyway, I found a picture on the internet, that will do the trick.

I am amazed how great these Garmin devices are. I don’t know if the stress it was referring to was the run or JFW constant chatting, but I got home, did a short breathing exercise (I’d never, ever, would do that in front of JFW) and fell asleep immediately.

Amazing what an hour of no hearing anyone talking to you can do to reduce your stress levels.

The run in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/15410834903

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González