It’s 5 weeks since my last blog post and here are the headlines
- Number of runs = 15
- Number of runs missed through snow/injury = 5
- Weekly target met = 2/5 times
- Parkrun attendance = 3
- Longest run – a tad over 13k
It was all going so well…
One cold, wet and windy Thursday training day, I chickened out of an outdoors run and headed to the gym. I did some speed intervals on the treadmill which went well. I pushed myself 2 mins fast; 1 minute recovery – increasing speed gradually until I covered 3km. All appeared well…. Then a couple of days later I realised that my left hip was not happy – sore particularly as I got up from sitting; better when standing. Aaaaargh! Not what I needed. If only I had braved the cold, the tweak would (most likely) not have occurred.
Coincident with my hip tweak, snow, followed by the melt-slush-freeze-ice pattern, stopped running too. By the following Thursday I had itchy feet and as the main roads were clear, I got togged up for a 5k loosener. Before I had exited the estate, I had lost my footing – despite wearing trail shoes. When I surveyed the paths by the main roads – these were similarly lethal. No run again.
The last straw was the following day when I received notification that an organised 10k road run I had entered on 16th December was cancelled. (This was extra sad as my niece JS was going to join me for this event.)
“Unfortunately the roads and paths in the surrounding villages are extremely icy, with large areas of black frost and accumulations of snow and ice. With temperatures set to drop again overnight we feel this is the safest decision for runners, spectators and volunteers. We hope you understand“
TBH my feelings were running high and I was getting a bit down over this lack of training. It had all been going so well in terms of me establishing routine and building up the distances. But now I was experiencing
- High levels of frustration – at being prevented from keeping up with my planned training programme due to an avoidable injury
- Significant Worry – that this would set me back and I would have lost condition and benefits of my earlier training would be negated
Advice from my support network helped steady my emotions
- Son, I, told me I mustn’t run on injury – I must rest and recover.
- WJ, from my online running buddy community, advised
Don’t be afraid of taking a rest or a break when you need to, for example when you are injured. It will only benefit you in the long term… You won’t lose fitness in that time but it will allow sore muscles and inflamed tendons and so on to recover. Very important. See it as part of your training.
Online sources confirmed this sound advice. According to a Runners World article I was in the the not-quite-injured but not-quite-healthy yellow zone. Essentially not such a full blown injury that I needed to take weeks out, but a warning that a bit of rest now might prevent further damage and time out of training.
Due to the recent situation, I have explored one of the questions I posed in the mind map in A slow start blogpost – what if I get injured? The answer appears to be, a short time off is no reason to worry excessively and could, in the long run, be more beneficial than running through an injury and potentially causing more damage. Fingers crossed I don’t need to explore this issue again!
Running like a dream
Putting the weather-injury interlude to one side, some things have gone well. I have been:
- Gradually increasing my distance – especially in terms of long run distance
- Thoroughly enjoying planning routes of varying distances.
- Continuing to maintain my weekly routine running on Tue and Thu; 1-2 runs over the weekend; cardio (non running classes) at the gym;
Hubby, C, joined me for my longest run to date. I had planned a 14km route (to reach that week’s target) which stitched together pretty much all my various existing routes as well as incorporating occasional new extra sections to attain the desired distance. Somewhere in the middle I forgot a planned stretch and so as we arrived back home the distance covered was only 13.3. I supposed I could have kept on going….
Gearing up
It has been my birthday and I received some running related presents – from eldest son CA and his partner T; a flipbelt for carrying all those gels etc in (Strangely it hasn’t made me look like the woman in the link… ) and some Epsom salts for soaking those aching muscles when I get to the long runs.
Final words
A big thank you to the people following and supporting me – sending me messages of support and encouragement; asking me how I am doing; asking when the next blog post will be up (sorry about the delay until this one). It is all greatly appreciated and helping me carry on.
Marathon Feat 
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