If my body could speak, this is what it would have said.

2:13 am - "Why does my belly hurt so much?"

Tosses and turns in bed. Tries not to wake the Mister.

5:00 am - "F*ck that alarm is loud. I know I said I'd get up now but that was before I endlessly tossed around in bed for hours."

Hits snooze.

5:10 am - "Nah, still feel awful. Too hard. I'll go to parkrun but I have heaps of time. Imma gonna lie here until I'm damn well ready."

Hits snooze again, feeling not one bit bad about it.

5:20 am - "Ok. Ok. I'll get up. If I get some sunlight in my eyes and drink this bottle of water I'll probably feel better... or at least, awake enough enough to face the world."

5:35 am - Stand up from squatting down in the garden weeding.

"Ah, I feel better for having my bare feet on the grass and being outside, and chatting to that lady with the puppy dogs I just patted. Ok. Now I think I can handle breakfast."

Drinks several hundred mls of green smoothie. Gets dressed.

5:59am - Clambers into car. Barely says a word on the 35 minute trip to parkrun.

6:40 am - "Oh my body still feels awful. How long have I had this headache? And where did it come from anyway?

"F*ck, I'm tired. And what's with my belly? I didn't eat anything bad!

"Meanwhile, how come my heart rate is in the 60's? How can it possibly be this low when I feel this bad?! How come, when I normally do a warm up it easily spikes into the 100's and now, when I am the worst I've ever felt in a warm up, how come I can't get it over 80?!

"Maybe my heart is in denial. Maybe it's saying,

"Nah, surely she's not going to run. She's going to go and sit down somewhere and chill out. Surely. No need to get excited..."

6:55 am - Mister wants a photo. I smile and pretend to be happy.

"And I should be happy, right? I'm not dying. I'm so much luckier than so many other people. If only my belly would feel better and my head stop yelling at me..."

7:00 am - People in front of me start running. I've positioned myself at the back so I can go slow. I start my watch and glance at my starting heart rate. 135.

"Faaaaaaaark. What the hell?! I imagine my heart is in shock:

"What. The. Hell. Are. We. Doing?! She's actually making us run, isn't she?!"

...

And run I did, slowly, trying to stay in Zone 2, the whole way around. It mostly worked, though I felt truly dreadful the whole time.

When my heart rate went above 136 (and therefore into Zone 3), like at the start line and with three or four short hills, I just slowed down even more.

Thankfully, it worked every time. Eventually, I got to the top of the hill and it dropped again nicely. Or I'd overtake another walker and get too excited and suddenly realise I was running too fast (read 8:00 min/km pace 😆).

But overall I managed to do 44+ minutes of my 50:53 parkrun in Zone 2. It was only the last 100-200 metres, at the finish line where my heart rate climbed into the 150's and despite me slowing down even more it kept climbing.

Oh well. Maybe I care too much what other people think. Maybe that's why my heart rate went through the roof when I was surrounded by people at the start and finish. Who knows.

Either way, it's over and I didn't die.

Now, where the heck is my coffee?

Photos of me, taken by @new.things. Photos of my run data are screenshots from my Garmin App. All coercing of Caroline was done by Caroline's mind and no one else. In hindsight, no Caroline's were harmed in the making of this post ;)