Training for Half-Marathon: Part 3 of 5

Week 3 (Monday, 10 April 2017-Sunday, 16 April 2017)

Are you bored yet? When I was doing intervals this week, as much as I enjoyed them, the truth of something Husband said about running (and track and field, and sports events in general I guess) struck me - a lot of it is just doing the same thing over and over and over again. This week's interval workout consisted of 16x400m, which I did on Tuesday, i.e. two days after I was certified properly free of HFMD. Sustained a 5:13-5:20/km pace for each 400m interval, with a one minute rest at 6:00-6:15/km between each, for a total distance of about 12km in 1:09:40. Could have pushed it, but decided not to. 

Monday's workout was a short 20 minute run followed by strength training with my PT, and to ease myself back into cardio workouts, I went for RPM on Wednesday and Thursday at lunchtime. 

Friday, 14 April

This was Good Friday. Normally we'd have gone to church, but there was only one service at 8pm, so we didn't go this year. I took Daniel with me to collect my race pack (if you follow me on Instagram you would have seen the update), and was reminded of why I don't particularly enjoy races in Singapore anymore. They're just too crowded, there are too many freebies in the race pack and at the bazaars accompanying the race pack collection which nobody really uses (which pains me - all that plastic, all those resources which could have been put to better use) and there is this lingering scent of muscle rub in the air. I wonder why I was so onz about entering this giveaway in the first place. I can hear Husband's voice in my head: I told you so!

Daniel is really happy that we took the bus and the train together, though. If only his needs would remain this simple.

Saturday, 15 April 

H was in town for the weekend, so we took her to our favourite cafe near our house for brunch. We ate our usual chicken curry and kaya toast, I had ice lemon tea siu dai and Jon had kopi-c siu dai. All was fine and dandy until after our afternoon naps. 

I woke up to go for a run - it was the perfect evening for it, chilly and cloudy after the afternoon rain, the type of evening where you could really kill a workout. But I woke up feeling extremely nauseous, like first trimester nauseous, and I could feel the brunch churning around in my stomach. I made myself throw up (no, I do not have an eating disorder nor am I pregnant again - Aunt Flo just visited, thank God) and forced myself out to the PCN. Managed 12km or so (wasn't tracking) at a disappointing pace. It was a really discouraging run, given all the training I had put in thus far (and after you have children, do you know how hard it is to come by days with perfect running conditions? In fact, both children were fast asleep when I left the house), but on hindsight, I think the fact that I managed to complete it although I felt like throwing up every single minute of that one and a half hours is commendable. 

I got home, Daniel came bounding to the front door to greet me, and promptly threw up the contents of his brunch at my feet. Soon after, Husband started feeling sick and started throwing up too. He commented that he now knew what vomiting in the first trimester must feel like. (Seriously. As if a MAN would ever understand.)

Husband and Daniel spend the next 2-3 hours throwing up intermittently. Husband makes it to the toilet each time, Daniel doesn't. Andrew, bless his dear little heart (thankfully he is still mostly on formula and not on table food), goes to bed without much fuss. The pile of laundry grows, and there are still Andrew's bottles to be washed. Thankfully, after I spend about an hour wrapped up in a blanket on my bed and shivering, God hears my prayers and I feel well enough to do some laundry and wash the bottles.

We are unable to isolate the cause of our food poisoning, but I think we will have to (sadly) lay off going to our favourite cafe for a while. I won't post its name here, because we really like the place and the owners, and we can't be certain it was their food, but it's easy enough to find out if you Google (also if you know where I stay. Haha). In any event, if it was really their food, it was probably a one-off. We've been eating there for months with no incident. H was fine as well, so it may have been the Dairyworks Edam Cheese Sticks which I got for Daniel as a reward for being so well-behaved at NTUC, but it seems unlikely given that they're vacuum packed. 

Sunday, 16 April

Husband and I wake up feeling a bit weak, but generally okay and looking forward to finally going to church and celebrating Easter Sunday. 

About halfway to church, Daniel does a massive vomit, like the kind you HAVE to go home to clean up. So that is exactly what we do, and throughout the day, he has about three more vomits and I do three loads of laundry and I am so tired and I wonder if I'm going to post a DNS in two weeks' time.

Oh, woe is me, whine whine whine. I am rolling my eyes at myself as I type this, because Welcome To Parenthood, right? And who am I to whine, when I was the one who stubbornly refused to get live-in help???  

***

If you can't already tell, I'm feeling pretty exhausted and disappointed in the week.  It got off to a pretty good start, and I was optimistic about hitting some good running times this long weekend. I managed to get a nice crackly skin on my baked twee bah on Monday quite by accident, and we were all feeling upbeat about our impending release from the scourge of HFMD. It was also a short week, which would end in time of reflection and celebration of our faith... Well, I still had that time of reflection, just that I was lying in my bed at 1.30am feeling too cold and wondering if these things (HFMD, the food poisoning just as Husband's quarantine ended) were perhaps God's way of telling me to trust in Him to provide the strength, patience and grace to get through and still run this (literal) race at the end of these five weeks. I can't help but keep thinking back to the GEWR 2015 and how the haze was literally washed away just in time for it.

It's not like it's a big deal, really. There will be other races when the kids are older, hopefully overseas (better weather, more sane start times). But it would be nice to post a good timing. Husband is right though, as he usually is about these things - I should just enjoy it, as I have before, and as I hope to do so for many more years to come. 

***

Daniel insisted that I be the one to clean him up every single time he vomited or pooed this weekend. Drained as I was, I actually found this rather touching. Andrew, too, insisted that I carry him whenever I had my hands free. I also found this rather touching.

I just checked, and no, I am not running a fever. It is, however, quite late. Here's to Week 4, and if you've made it thus far without thinking Why do I still bother reading this auntie's rambly blog, thank you.