Last Tuesday I had an odd eposide at work. In the canteen at about 9.30am after second breakfast (first breakfast being at about 4.40am) the energy drained away from me, I started sweating quite heavily and my skin went grey and cold and clammy. Dave the ex-paramedic first aider ushered me into the first aid room, took my pulse (52) and generally kept a close eye on me. He later said that he "thought I would have to go to work on you", as he initially thought I was having a heart attack. Anyway, after about 20 minutes or so the colour came back and I went back to work, but not before I phoned Dani and asked her to book me into the doctors ASAP. The doctor phoned me at work and I was in at 11.40, taking the rest of the day off. After an ECG at the surgery and much head scratching I was sent to Macclesfield Hospital AAU (Acute Assesment Unit) as a precaution, where I had two more ECGs, blood taken, and my blood pressure taken at regular intervals. Apart from some irregularities on the ECG, nothing to be concerned about, there was only oddity which was a very low resting heart rate, down to 41 at one point. The blood testing machine was down however, and my blood sent to another hospital. So at 10pm we went home as the test results weren't due to another hour and a half. I wasn't worried about the results as the doctor felt that they wouldn't show anything out of the ordinary. So, a mystery.
On Wednesday I went to work and felt fine.
Thursday I had off anyway, so as I still felt good I decided to do the Stoney Middleton evening fell race for the second year running. I still hadn't heard anything about my blood results but no news is good news!
Of course Tuesday was on my mind as I set off, keeping a steady pace and taking it easy. Or as easy as you can take a 2.5k road climb, followed by more climbing off-road. Still, I held my own pace and didn't allow myself to get dragged into chasing people down. I felt ok, a bit slow perhaps, but otherwise fine considering my recent scare. Soon the route pointed downhill, quite muddy in places, but not as hard going as the previous year. I did slip over at one point but got straight back up and carried on. One final climb then down to the finish. It would have been tempting to up the speed to flat out, but I resisted, well until someone tried to come past me in the final few metres...
Despite not giving the race my all, and having had a bit of a scare two days previously, I managed to knock three minutes off last years time, finishing the 8.5k course in 113th place (out of 193 finishers) with a time of 48:25. So, I was quite pleased with that.
Should I have raced? Maybe, maybe not. But I know my body pretty well, and felt that I would be ok.
Paul.
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