The reason is the race I ran yesterday. Called Stockholms brantaste, Stockholms steepest in english.
Last sunday I sent a message to my cousin asking if he would like to tag along for this race. He replied that he was already signed up together with his brothers and some friends of theirs, of course I decided to participate. After all it was only 3.3 km and even if I wasn't in good shape due to having had problems training during my allergy season I could still run and am still a good runner, it shouldn't be that hard, right?
Wrong. After just 100m up the first and easiest ski slope of three I realised that I wasn't going to run up the slopes. I started walking to make sure I'd have enough energy to survive the other two, it wasn't much slower than running either so I think it was a good strategy given that I'm too heavy to perform well when there are a lot of slopes. Upon reaching the top it was immidiately downhill, oh well... you don't need to know everything so I'll skip to the funny parts of my race/nice torture. In slope 2 I still felt quite fresh, just like the first slope I mixed running and walking to save energy for the coming kilometer of quite flat ground. Too bad I saved energy for the last slope during the last km.
Slope 3: Tough, even if I had saved some energy I was tired, around 28 degrees celsius didn't make it any better. I didn't run from the start, unlike the other slopes, I figured I might be able to make a nice finish the last 10m, 10m is quite a lot in this situation I assure you. After two thirds of it I got company from someone I knew - and therefore had to beat -, we climbed half a minute together, then with 25m left I decided to rush for the goal, I actually managed to run 15m, then I had to start walking but it had given me enough distance to beat him. After the finish line I couldn't really stand up but after some time we made our way down to ground level with the rest of our team.
The rest of the day was a bit more pleasant, we went to a nearby bridge and took a 2 min bath, it wasn't rly warm but when it's 28C and not a cloud it still feels good. After drying a bit we went home to my cousins cousin and had a nice meal together with fruit, sandwiches, smoothies and more stuff to eat and drink. Very well fixed by the hosts, it was lovely with smoothies in the warmth. After 2 hours we went home to our own places and that's the end of the great day I had, even if my performance in the race was really bad compared to the rest of my group. Now it's Sunday and I feel the consequences of the 3km, 255m uphill race. One thing is for sure tho, I will run this race again next year and then I will be prepared. I recommend all you to participate as well. How I feel?
My legs hurt a lot.