London Marathon Training - 5 weeks to go :(
Key - Both of us - Blue Kelly - Purple John - Orange
Monday 12th March 2018
I started the week feeling optimistic after yesterday's successful 3 mile run. I wanted to try 5 miles today and then planned to run 8 on Wednesday and 10 on Sunday.
The problem with planters fasciitis (and probably with other injuries as well) is that there is such a lot of contrasting information online that it's sometimes hard to know what to believe. As most of the pain was in my heel, I thought it would be good to try and minimize the time that my heel hits the ground. So I tried to copy John's style of running by running on my toes. On reflection, this maybe wasn't the best idea as afterwards, my foot was really quite painful again.
My optimism quickly disappeared as I spent the rest of the day limping again feeling pain similar to that of about 3 days ago. Frustrated with myself for putting back my recovery, I decided to take a few more days off and not run until I could be sure that I wasn't going to go backwards.
Lots and lots and lots of rolling and icing.
Recovery run for me - 5Mi @ 8:40MM pace. No PT due to KD injury. Finished the run feeling pretty knackered and run down and also with an annoying sore throat... I put it down to a heavy alcohol weekend and feeling a bit run down.
Tuesday 13th March 2018
Today I continued to roll and ice my foot throughout the day. In the evening, I thought I'd try a yoga class. I warned the instructor that I might not be able to do everything because of my PF. Surprisingly, my foot didn't hurt at all and my whole body felt better for lots of stretching, breathing and relaxing.
Woke up with a full on throat virus. Feeling like a bus had hit me, I postponed my morning speed work and instead ran in the evening. No speedwork though - feeling rubbish - 3miles @ 8:30MM pace... I warn you, this may get a bit repetitive.
Wednesday 14th March 2018
Today I got home from work feeling pretty down. I felt sluggish, lazy and pretty down. John managed to convince me that going to the gym would be a good idea. He ran to the gym and I walked and met him there.
We did 15 minutes on the cross trainer, 5 minutes on the rower and 10 minutes on the bike. I really did feel better. It felt good to have exercised and burned some calories.
Another 5K recovery run en route to meet KD at the gym. 8:15MM pace. Starting to feel better but struggling to breath properly so just gonna run short and steady through the week and hope I recover in time for the weekend.
Cross training is fun. It's nice to do something new. The gym can be boring if you don't challenge yourself so I set out to use the cross trainer, row and cycle for longer than I ever have before... 10 minutes on each meant I set a PB on each machine.
Thursday 15th March 2018
Mega busy day at work today. 1/2 day of teaching, followed by leading a Science Challenge for 18 other schools. I then went back to school briefly before driving to Backwell for a meeting and then driving back to school for a Governors meeting that didn't finish until 9:30pm. A long day which took my mind off my foot! No exercise at all though.
A solo run after work as the other members of the Aalco Running Club were busy doing other things. 3miles @ 8:15pace and feeling even better than yesterday.
Friday 16th March 2018
Being on a course today meant that I could spend lots of time rolling my foot with my mate the golf ball under the table - really handy!
We went back to the gym in the evening. I started off with a little abs circuit. Next, I did 20 mins on the cross trainer, 10 minutes on the rower and then 15 mins on the bike. Stepping it up from Wednesday.
While my foot is feeling better each day and doesn't hurt at all to walk on, I'm worried about running on it and making it worse. I really can't afford to take many more weeks off, if I am still planning on running the London Marathon. At the moment, honestly, I really don't know if I'll be able to. I really don't want to 'plod' round. I want to be in the position so that I can race it. My worry is that, if I miss much more training, I'm simply not going to be able to run a good time.
I really want to be able run this weekend. Fingers crossed.
A first for me - a Friday evening run. I'm not sure if I've ever run a Friday evening? KD suggests we did a few years back but I don't remember. Friday evenings are for beer! Anyway - I ran another 5K - progressive, averaging 8mm. I bumped into club mate Tim on my round the harbourside - he's running strong but I forgot to ask him which spring marathon he's training for now? I finished up my run at the gym and did the same workout as Wednesday but just spent a bit longer on each mahine - 3 new PBs! (I'd liek to have a go at rowing 2000mtrs in under 8 minutes at some point... not very impressive but still something I have never done!)
Saturday 17th March 2018
While John went out running, I decided to go to the gym again. I ran there - just 1/2 a mile- while my foot didn't hurt too much, I could still feel the pain. Frustrating. The more I research and talk to people the more I hear times like 3-6 weeks, 1-3 months...It's making me feel very worried. However, lots of what I've read has mentioned serious pain when walking which I don't have. I'd like to try a few miles tomorrow so I spent most of the day today alternating between rolling an ice bottle under my foot and rolling the golf ball. All of this is definitely helping.
Today, I did another abs circuit before 25 mins on the cross trainer while watching Robot Wars!
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| I enjoy the view from the gym |
A proper workout for me today - I set off towards the Bristol to Bath cycle path running the first half against eye watering easterly Siberian winds - not a comfy start. I ran steady out to 5 miles and turned around to make my way home and started to run 3 miles at sub marathon pace. It was lush - wind behind, down hill, running on reduced-miles-fresh legs - marathon pace was bliss :-) I finished the workout with a couple of steady miles towards home in very heavy pretty snow:
10 miles @ 7:09MM (Efforts: 6:30, 6:29, 6:23)
PS - I can breathe now - virusy-coldy-knackerdy symptoms are diminishing.
Sunday 18th March 2018
SNNNNNOOOOWWWW!!!!! I woke up to a beautiful view - white everywhere! I couldn't believe it. I thought it was going to snow a bit during the day but I wasn't expecting a blanket!
John had planned to run with Marcus and Sam and I had planned to run a little bit and then turn around and go home. I hadn't planned on snow.
I wasn't feeling very confident about running on the snow as I don't like running when I feel like I might fall over. I wore my trail shoes - which turned out to be a brilliant plan.
John and I headed off towards the meeting point. When it got close to the point where I should probably go back, I started feeling a bit down. I wanted to go and run in the snow with my friends! Once again, feelings of frustration crept in. I left John to go and join the crew and started the lonely run back home.
Trying to think of the positives, I realised that my foot hardly hurt at all. I was running slowly and cautiously but actually feeling very little pain at all. This is good! Thankfully, my mood lifted and I finished my 3 miles feeling positive.
To add to my positive mood, I decided to make a snow fox for John to see when the arrived home (unfortunately, he came in a different entrance and didn't see it in real life but I showed him the photos!).
If I can build up next week and then have two more good training weeks, I think I can still go sub 3. I just have to be really careful not to put my recovery back at all and not do too much. Just focus on a few really high quality sessions a week.
Mission aborted! I set of with the intention of running 20/22 miles today with the guys. I got to the top of the hill and met the Maestro and Sam who were both raring to go. I was dressed like an arctic explorer and feeling somewhat battered by the snowfall - raring to go back to bed. I made the (possibly overly) sensible decision to not join the guys on a 20mile long run but to detor through Ashton Court back towards home. In hindsight, the conditions improved on my way home and throughout the morning.. Starring at my 35miles total for the week I'm a little bit annoyed with myself for not just getting on with it and banking a 20miler - it would have been a good laugh and I'd have recovered from being poorly in the week and banked a good weekends worth of training.. Not to be and another example of a possible lack of grit from me? Let hope it's in abundance come race day!
Lacking in miles and sessions this week but I've gotten through a tough week of being poorly and HOPEFULLY this is my last setback before London. 5 weeks of building up and tapering back down before the big day.
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