Running

[Jassassino]

So, had a pretty terrifying experience last Sunday whilst on a routine long run which I feel like people who want to run/do run regularly should hear, as well as wanting - generally speaking - to talk about it and articulate some of my thoughts and emotions about it. So here it goes:

I was 11km into a 16km run with a close friend of mine, felt absolutely fine for the majority of it and was having casual chit chat and conversation throughout it. Suddenly, around the 11km mark, the sole of my foot felt a bit numb. I thought this was actually a trainer problem, so I stopped to check my shoe and readjust - it all looked fine, so I kept on. Less than 10 steps later, I began to lose feeling in my foot, spreading to my left leg and I began to fall down - losing total bodily autonomy and control, I was virtually screaming to my friend to help for about 5 seconds flat, he had caught me more or less (I still took a bit of a tumble down onto the ground) but he and three passerbys propped me up against the wall and covered me in a blanket, gave me water and called an ambulance. I collapsed and was out cold for about 5 minutes, biting my tongue as I fell (which has given me a temporary lisp and difficulty to chew anything solid - it's nothing but yoghurt based meals for me right now pretty much).

What happened? The most likely culprit was a mini stroke or heart attack (most likely the former) induced by heat exhaustion. Because we started early, we began running in the shadows at around 9:30, when it was relatively cold. I hadn't drank any water since about 16 hours prior, I'd had no food since about 16 hours prior either and by the time I collapsed, it was around 10:15/10:30 and the sun was beaming directly on us both. Following that, I spent around 8 hours in A&E with various tests done including CT and ECGs, bloods and blood pressure markers, I've got a set of follow ups booked in to double check I'm okay as well in the first week of September.

It's been pretty traumatic for me, I'm quite scared to go out alone, I'm drinking water like a camel (this is definitely a positive repercussion) and I'm not afraid to start carb loading too before long runs. I'm not ready to run again yet (I'm going to give it a little longer break before I do) but aside from my weekly Wednesday run with my club, I'm also going to switch to treadmill running and training to control my environment better and take regular water breaks. Even typing this has me shaking a bit, honestly it's something I hope nobody here ever goes through, and really highlighted to me just how much you hang in the balance between total control of your self - your physicality, and how quickly that can be stripped from you if you neglect to acknowledge basic needs and requirements.

I do hope I can get back to running as I was, I'll still endeavour to train as hard as possible for Florence Marathon, but if anybody is to take any advice from this - please hydrate, eat properly and consider all the conditions outside. And make sure too, if you're running alone, somebody knows and knows to check on you if you're late. I've went out running without my phone dozens of times - never again.

And honestly, if there's nobody for you to ask to check in on you on a long run to make sure you're back safe, PM me and I'll happily do so over WhatsApp.