Trapped in the kitchen: The Alton 10

I found history repeating itself yesterday. In the Totton 10k last year, a week before London, I reached half way dizzy and sick and for the first time in a 10k I walked.

At the Alton 10 yesterday in 27°C of blazing sun I got to the 2nd water stop at 7 miles thinking not again!. My head throbbed, my arms tingled, and my motivation for doing the race, with the Edinburgh Marathon 2 weeks away, was not great. I walked. This was a pattern that I kept up for another 2 miles, seeing a hill as an excuse to walk. There are a lot of hills in the Alton 10!

I wasn't the only one having a bad day though: I'd dropped team-mate Graham earlier in the race, when he started to struggle in the heat. He caught me again in my walk breaks and I guess kept me going for a while. He wasn't able to respond though when I decided I ought to at least run the last mile to claw back a few points for the team. At least I was able to overtake most of the women who had overtaken me in the last walk break. Team-mate Shelly finished just behind me and so I assume, having also picked off the same runners I'd overtaken, must have finished strongly.

I love running in the heat, I really do! Long runs, interval sessions, general training runs - the summer sun just makes you want to get out there and do it. Even track races can be fun in the heat - even a 5000m is only just long enough for you to start feeling the heat. Anything longer though, and I'm toast (almost literally!).

The race yesterday wasn't even supposed to be an all out effort - with Edinburgh in mind I'd decided to peg my pace back to marathon effort, running on heart rate. Trouble was, I'd done an 18-mile run on Friday evening, already feeling tired from the Promenade 5k, and I wasn't at my freshest for Alton. Marathon effort in cooler weather would have felt tough, but in the heat it nearly finished me off.

And why did I think it was a good idea to "find some shade" afterwards and try to cool off lying on the floor of a hot airless school gym? I lay there pouring with sweat, expecting to feel cooler, but continued to boil and feel dizzy. Only once I'd gone back into the sun and Diana had poured water over me did I start to feel OK.

I was amazed at how some people seemed to cope with the heat. Tony led our boys home to a very impressive, and much needed, team 5th place. Toby Lambert won the race in a faster time than last year's winner (in cool weather).

"At least the forecast for Edinburgh is perfect - cool and damp" I said to someone afterwards. Unfortunately that forecast had changed by the time I got home to warm and sunny. Nooo! Please let it be cool. I really can't stand the heat and I really can't get out of the kitchen. Fortunately as I write this the forecast has gone back to cool and cloudy, such is the vague nature of a 14-day forecast.

Last year's hot Totton was a warning of what to expect in London. Let's hope the hot Alton doesn't predict the one thing that will stop me going sub-3:15 in Edinburgh.