No flies on me

Today I had to do 6 miles, with 6 2 minute intervals "sprinkled in" as the training plan puts it, like these were delicious seasonings on a plate of food rather than a series of attempts to regurgitate your lungs. Today they were all mean to be at 3,000 metre pace, which is a distance I've never actually run, but that recent pace suggests should be around 4 minute kilometres.

The first two were fine - almost too easy, but I started the third by the start/finish line of the F1 track, and headed down along the water. Unbeknownst to me, there was a midge party going on and everyone had been invited.

I had flies in my eyes. I had flies on my arms. And mostly, I had flies in my lungs. Not just a fly here, a fly there. Great clods of suicidal flies, flying (because that's what flies do, folks) into my mouth and down my throat.

I swallowed flies. Perhaps I'll die. There were no spiders/cats/dogs/horses for me to swallow as an antidote to these insects, and it has to be said, trying to run fast isn't an activity that benefits from breathing through a filter of midge remnants. I didn't know whether to sprint or puke.

The worst of it was that I started running fast just as I hit the cloud of flies, which meant when I'd finished running and hawking up dead flies two minutes later, I had to turn round and run back through the flies once more. And since I'd just gobbled a load of their nearest and dearest, they weren't exactly chuffed to see me either.

Got home, took my shirt off, found I was liberally coated with flies. I think I need to find a different running route.