Playing the Long Game

Long time no blog...

Where were we...

Two weeks ago I'd just done an 18 mile run at the end and for the following few days i felt pretty awful and had very sore legs indeed. Following the cup final I had a painful right ankle which prevented me from playing the following week. Since then I've completed two 20 mile runs in 3:20 and 3:09. After both I felt pretty tired but hadn't suffered from any cramp. However, after my latest run I have started to develop shin splints, almost predominantly on my left side, as well as what feels like it might be 'Runners Knee' or ITBS (Iliotibial band syndrome) in the same leg. As things go I've been pretty lucky with injuries in my sporting life, I've never broken anything bigger than a toe. I've had a few bad ankle sprains and the only other injuries I can remember were a subluxated (fancy word for nearly dislocated) shoulder and a rib problem from playing rugby. The rib injury which wasn't very pleasant as it limited my ability to expand my ribcage meaning it was a struggle to breathe! Thankfully a bit help from a physiotherapist friend sorted that out, only for me to then undo his hard work by throwing myself on the floor whilst playing with his son! This is typical of my behaviour when it comes to injury, when I hurt my shoulder it was during a warm-up drill at an introduction for Chester Romans American Football team a few years back, what did I do? I kept going for the full 2 hour session despite being in pretty bad pain because I didnt want to miss out. The same thing has been true when I've sprained my ankle, I always went back to playing football to soon and often made it worse (I didn't convert to rugby until I was 24). So for me making the descision to miss 2 out of our last 3 rugby matches of the season was tough to make and left me feeling pretty pissed off. Without the final goal of running 69 miles being quite prominent in my mind I probably would have played both weekends, risking further injury but at least getting to be involved. Now, I might have come through unscathed but just as easily I could have put myself out of training for an extended period, this would have seriously dented my chances of achieving the goals I have set for myself in participating in the Wall Ultra Run 2013. This tends to be true in general life too, set backs tend to occur when I've been trying to do too much and not taken the time to step back, have a break and put things in perspective. Training runs when its cold and wet, eating and drinking the right things, sticking to a training schedule, all important elements in preparing for a long distance running event, but there needs to be a balance. If you're full of cold and it's raining cats and dogs then there's no point saying 'my plan says I've got to do a 90 minute run today, so off I go!' rest and recovery is just as important as the training. So I'm trying to listen to my body, its telling me 'your knee is not right, have a break and sort it out' so I'm not playing rugby on this beautiful Saturday afternoon and instead I am sat at the laptop writing this. At least this is better than being there watching and not being able to play, that's just like torture! 

Any way there's plenty of people who have made it though the training and are getting ready to compete in tomorrows Virgin London Marathon including a colleague of mine Liam Jones who has gone from being a non runner to 26.2 miles over the last year. He is raising money to aid the expansion of the Neonatal Unit where his daughter was cared for at the Countess of Chester Hospital. You can support Liam by going to www.justgiving.com/ladiesmanlondonmarathon. 

There was also the sad news from the Boston marathon this week, my thoughts go out to anyone affected there. My inspiration for this blog came from Haruki Murakami who entered the Boston marathon on several occasions he considered it one of his favourite marathons, also whilst travelling last year we met several people who had taken part in the marathon, hopefully one day I'll get the chance to enter myself. 



Until next time, best of luck to all those taking part tomorrow!