With the particularly hot weather we’ve had this week it’s a good idea to be cautious about what activity we do and take care.
The heat can affect anyone but certain people are more vulnerable and you may not know until its too late.
Groups that are vulnerable include:
Older people, especially over 75, babies and young children, people with serious long-term conditions, particularly dementia, heart, breathing or mobility problems, people on certain medicines, including those that affect sweating and temperature control, people with serious mental health problems, people who misuse alcohol or drugs AND people who are physically active – for example, labourers or those doing sports, including hiking.
Many of my clients know I’ve been through a difficult time over the last few months, I thought it was time to share my story, for others out there that are going the same or a similar experience; its a long read so make yourself a cuppa!
I’ve been a runner for a lot of years and also like to swim a couple of times a week and cycle (indoors and out). During 2017 my running fitness seemed to have dropped off though, with a number of things going wrong. I’d sprained my ankle in March and then fell over in 10-mile race in April- flat on my face and had to have my head wound glued. It was an unusually hot April day and a lot of runners were suffering in the heat, I was tired at eight and half miles so just put it down to lazy feet. After, I felt a bit unsure of my footing when running trail but just put it down to mentally getting over the fall. I also noticed I was getting slower in my parkruns, nothing significant and I just put it down to age (I was 56 at the time). In June I took part in a team relay event running from London to Cardiff and all seemed OK, even though I only had 20 minutes sleep in 24 hours, so I wasn’t overly bothered at this stage. Then in July, I got a niggly ‘injury’ which persisted and meant several weeks off running and I struggled to get back. But I did a lot of swimming, completing a 22-mile pool swim challenge over 5 weeks, and I started going to the gym to work out a couple of times a week. Towards the end of the year I’d done a few races, including some cross country and a 5-mile race which I enjoyed, and was only 3 minutes off my best. So, there was nothing significant and I thought things were picking up. I was certain that if I could just get back to some longer runs and get some more mileage under my belt I’d be back to my usual race fitness and distance in no time. I just needed to train harder!
Still some how managing hilly cross country in November 17Enjoying Christmas parkrun with Santa!New Years Day 2018 in neon – Friends help me celebrate my 100th parkrun
So, at New Year I was looking forward to 2018. No reason not to, things could only get better…
On 5 March I had the pleasure of joining Arry, aka dragonrun1027, on a little part of her epic 1027 mile ultra run around the whole perimeter of Wales. Arry started out on 24 March from Cardiff Bay and her plan is to return there on 5 May in time for the official opening of the new Wales Coast Path – having run all around Wales to get there.
