Victory 5 and overdoing it

I've had a tough couple of days, both in and out of running shoes. Friday was my marathon paced run on the treadmill. This went well and felt comfortable about the run and the fact that I was a couple of seconds per mile inside the pace. Unfortunately things just got tougher from there.

Friday night was the company dinner dance. I'm fortunate in that the company I work for is fairly generous and there was drinks on arrival a 6 bottles of wine between 10 people on each table. The problem was we only had 8 people on our table and they were mostly drinking the white, and I was drinking the red. Of course once you've started mingling after the meal you tended to get top-ups from other tables. I didn't get to bed until 2:30 in the morning.

Sunday brought the Victory 5 race in Portsmouth. This was my first race in several years and I wasn't looking forward to it. I did have a target in mind of 35:00 and would quite happily settle for 34:59! Unfortunately for me I placed myself in the wrong part of the starting line amongst the slower runners and it took me about 800 metres to pick my way out of them and into some clear running space. My first miles was 7:14 so I was under a bit of pressure from the start. fortunately I was able to pick the pace up and nearly eliminate the deficit by the 2nd mile. And was slighty ahead by the 3rd mile. The final run in was tough we were greeted at the 4 mile marker by a marshall that was screaming "Do you want a fast time or what!" I think he was an escapee from the Royal Navy's PT department. In the end I managed to bring myself home in about 34:35 so I was pleased with that time. Unfortunately I should have rewarded myself with a rest today but I didn't.

I've got an all-day meeting today and decided that I'd better run into work. So I did all 7 and half miles of it in a fraction over an 1hr. Unfortunately I'm now really feeling the strain and just want to sleep. My own fault and a mistake I will learn from.