Penultimate run, panic attacks and other musings

Route: 5m, undulating, road and trail
Weather: perfect running weather (16C, still, dry)

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying several children at my school to a chess tournament in Leeds. The plan was to cycle in this morning and back this afternoon resulting in a nice 26m round trip cycle. This didn't quite work out!

Had a really bad night's sleep last night. I had fallen asleep early on after feling a bit unwell - tight wheezy chest, indigestion, bit of a headache etc. I woke up at 10pm and had trouble getting back to sleep. I then lay in bed thinking about Friday's journey up to Glasgow and feeling generally panicky. It then dawned on me that what I was experiencing was not the beginning of a cold but the symptoms of anxiety! I have never ever suffered from anxiety or panic related things before, but that was definitely what I was experiencing last night. Not nice.

I did eventually fall asleep only to be woken at 7 by the alarm clock to get up and cycle to Leeds. I shot our of bed, still half asleep and raced around trying to sort my journey. I got it into my head that the tournament started at 8:45 and not 9:45, so decided I couldn;t possibly make it on the bike and instead got Briony to drive me in. I then had over an hour to kill in a very quiet suburb of Leeds early on a Sunday morning! It wasn't too bad as I found a nice cafe and partook in a bacon roll and a smoothie :) This also seemed to do the trick of calming me down!

I spent a really cool day with the children playing brilliant chess which also took my mind off things.

Finally got out for some exercise this evening. Ran a 5m route through the woods. No 'taper niggles' at all and feeling a whole lot better about it all!

What a load of rambling nonsense!

The other thing that's keeping me going this week are the posts on Patti's Site. Such a cool lady and very, very funny. Check it out!

So now my week's regime of early nights begins in earnest. What this means is that I go to bed early, lie in bed for hours and eventually fall asleep later than I ordinarilly would have! It's all mind games!