A week ago I was fretting a bit. Quite a lot.
Today I am feeling rather guilty because I'm feeling pretty good. I have now begun to question myself- maybe I didn't try hard enough, I should have pushed myself, maybe I could have got that sub-24, why am I not hurting and sore?
Up until Wednesday I think I was living off the fumes of euphoria. Sunday night was a fairly good night's sleep once I'd put an ice pack on my feet. Monday was ok, I pottered at home getting chores done and took a nap in the afternoon. The night was dreadful though- almost no sleep and appalling night sweats. So bad I had to change the bedlinen as everything was soaked. But Tuesday itself was fine and again I pottered about. Tuesday night was bad again. Another change of bedlinen.
Wednesday was work. No problems with all the stairs and I spent the day smiling, shoving my buckle in people's faces and having to explain that yes, it's perfectly possible to run 100 miles in one go; no, it is not bad for your joints; yes you eat on the go; no, you don't sleep; yes, you do wees (and more) in the bushes. My feet didn't like having to stand around, but other than that it wasn't a problem getting through a working day and that evening I managed a slow 2 miles around the village, more because I wanted to move in the fresh air than because I thought I should run.
Thursday was hard. I was suddenly very tired and just wanted to sleep although still legs felt fine. It was a very long and busy day too, not really stopping until 9pm when I couldn't be bothered to cook a meal. I ate rather too many biscuits for dinner, plus some leftover cauliflower!
Friday (today) I'm still sleepy but have been out for 4 miles. The autumn sunshine was so beautiful I just had to be out in it. Legs feel fine, feet a bit stiff and tired still and I need to resist the temptation to start training again. November I can start some kind of schedule but strength-based rather than running.
Being at work has been odd, jarring even. I do feel different after the weekend, not just because all my muscle seems to have disappeared, but actually changed as a person. It's as though that running experience was more real, more authentic than my usual daily life. There's no bullshit when you run that far. You are stripped back to essentials both in terms of what you have with you and as a person. Your job is to keep moving forward, to eat and drink, and to solve problems as they arise. That's it. There's nothing to hide behind, you can't fake any of it, you can't bluster or bluff your way through. As a result things feel and appear clearer, more simple. That is such a contrast to daily life even though I do my best to live a bullshit-free life. 'Real' life is still full of noise and clutter and the fact that to get by there's a lot of box-ticking and fakery.
I mentioned in the previous post about feeling outside of time and distance. That was beautiful. It was also surprising how neither time nor distance actually mattered or even felt meaningful. The sun rose higher and it set. Then it was dawn again. I had worried about managing such a long stretch of darkness but those 12-13 hours really didn't seem to last long. And actually I enjoyed being cocooned in the dark, following my little patch of light from the head torch. It could be isolating or disorientating not being conscious of passing hours and miles, but I found it made me feel far more connected to my surroundings, I felt a part of the landscape I was moving through. That's something I crave to feel again.
It's very hard to put into words what it feels like to run 100 miles. All I can say is that it is something that has the power to affect you in very deep and complicated ways.
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