Friday 31 January 2014
Hippy hippy shake
I didn't mention it before but I did have a bit of pain in my right hip flexor during the race on Sunday. Started at 3 miles in and persisted. That's the thing that you notice when you lift your leg up. Last time I had that trouble was after my first half marathon and it lasted for a few weeks. Pretty painful the next day so I emailed my sports therapist who very kindly sent me a load of exercises. Compensating for torturing me with sports massage of course! Anyway I went swimming on Mon eve and on Tues it was miles better. On Wed I did a 30 min interval run and no problem. On Thurs eve I ran with the club and we were doing hill repeats. So after two repeats the pain was back. Groan. Obviously its the extra effort of going uphill. So today I went for a long walk and now it has gone off again. So will it reappear tomorrow on a 7 mile run with the club? I hope not. Maybe I will just stuff myself with cake afterwards and ignore it. Otherwise it will have to be a trip to Mick the Marmaliser to batter it out. Yerk.
Monday 27 January 2014
It all went horribly wrong... and then went right again
OK I admit it. I've been putting this off. Basically everything went sky high and then plunged dismally into the abyss. On 15 December I did the Great Yorkshire Pieathlon which is the most fun you can ever have with your trainers on. It was absolutely brilliant. Yes that is us posing with the great Pieman himself and no this photo does not show the chuffing great hills we were expected to climb on the route. Yes that is a turkey on my head. Is that a problem?
There's so much I could say about it but I try to keep these entries short so alas I'll move on.
Basically, to cut a long story short, I was on such a high after this fantastic weekend that I didn't notice the storm approaching. And that storm was a nasty chest virus thingy that wiped me off my feet, put paid to my Christmas and New Year, stopped me running for three weeks, made me miss seeing my lovely family and friends and caused me to pull out of my New Year's Day 10k race. You absolute swine. Though not swine flu thank goodness.
Naturally I was not in the best of moods. Especially when I got an email from the Stroke Association Just Giving page reminding me that there was only 12 weeks to go to the marathon. Shriek! Tentatively I tried to run down the lane and back. Wow, talk about not appreciating your health when you have it, I could hardly breathe. So no running, no swimming, even walking felt like a huge effort.
Okay fast forward to now. Gradually I have managed to eke my way back to 13 miles. That was in the icy conditions that caused me to narrowly avoid doing a Torvill and Dean's Ravel's Bolero on several occasions. I could have fallen and squashed a dog at one point.
Yesterday I ran the Ferriby 10. What a day. You know when you're on holiday in a caravan and the rain is lashing down the window panes and the caravan is rocking in the wind and your little face is pressed up against the window willing it to stop so you can go to the beach? Yes well it was like that but instead of sitting inside, nice and warm and playing cards, you put on a tee-shirt and prance off for 10 miles up hill and down dale in temperatures of 2 deg with horizontal sleet shotblasting your cheeks. So cold in fact that my arms and fingers went numb and I didn't realise I couldn't make a pincer movement until I tried to get a Shot Blok out of my bag. Good job I didn't have to re-tie a shoelace. Anyway, despite the conditions being the worst I have ever run in, I had a brilliant time. For some reason it all went really well. My legs didn't ache, my breathing was fine, my pace was comfortable and all in all I just ran it. No problems. How often can you say that? I feel like saving that experience in a bottle for times when things are not going well. Strangely enough I was running along thinking 'it's going to get bad/ be a really steep hill/ feel really difficult in a minute' but it just never did. Oh the joy of such a run. You read it here remember?
So here I am. Back in the zone as they say. Not sure how this week is going to work out or when I am going do my next long run but suddenly this marathon looks like it is not so far out of reach after all.
Basically, to cut a long story short, I was on such a high after this fantastic weekend that I didn't notice the storm approaching. And that storm was a nasty chest virus thingy that wiped me off my feet, put paid to my Christmas and New Year, stopped me running for three weeks, made me miss seeing my lovely family and friends and caused me to pull out of my New Year's Day 10k race. You absolute swine. Though not swine flu thank goodness.
Naturally I was not in the best of moods. Especially when I got an email from the Stroke Association Just Giving page reminding me that there was only 12 weeks to go to the marathon. Shriek! Tentatively I tried to run down the lane and back. Wow, talk about not appreciating your health when you have it, I could hardly breathe. So no running, no swimming, even walking felt like a huge effort.
Okay fast forward to now. Gradually I have managed to eke my way back to 13 miles. That was in the icy conditions that caused me to narrowly avoid doing a Torvill and Dean's Ravel's Bolero on several occasions. I could have fallen and squashed a dog at one point.
Yesterday I ran the Ferriby 10. What a day. You know when you're on holiday in a caravan and the rain is lashing down the window panes and the caravan is rocking in the wind and your little face is pressed up against the window willing it to stop so you can go to the beach? Yes well it was like that but instead of sitting inside, nice and warm and playing cards, you put on a tee-shirt and prance off for 10 miles up hill and down dale in temperatures of 2 deg with horizontal sleet shotblasting your cheeks. So cold in fact that my arms and fingers went numb and I didn't realise I couldn't make a pincer movement until I tried to get a Shot Blok out of my bag. Good job I didn't have to re-tie a shoelace. Anyway, despite the conditions being the worst I have ever run in, I had a brilliant time. For some reason it all went really well. My legs didn't ache, my breathing was fine, my pace was comfortable and all in all I just ran it. No problems. How often can you say that? I feel like saving that experience in a bottle for times when things are not going well. Strangely enough I was running along thinking 'it's going to get bad/ be a really steep hill/ feel really difficult in a minute' but it just never did. Oh the joy of such a run. You read it here remember?
So here I am. Back in the zone as they say. Not sure how this week is going to work out or when I am going do my next long run but suddenly this marathon looks like it is not so far out of reach after all.
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