Sunday, November 29, 2015

The road to recovery

So I'm still far from 100% but things are little by little improving thankfully.

For one I've managed a run 4miles this week in the morning with little or no discomfort and at an avg pace of around 8:40min/mile so thats a sight better then the 2miles I could manage the week before and experienced pain walking down the stairs the next morning.  

I also did a longer run at the weekend by taking part in the Stook 10mile race on Sunday...I didn't race it!

I had paid for the race weeks earlier so I figured I might as well run it anyway, I took it very easy and only experienced some discomfort around the mile 6 mark.    The funny thing is that the flying mile at mile 8-9 actually helped stretch out the leg muscles and by the time I finished the race the legs felt pretty good.

Another cow bell for the collection

After the race again things were also better as I experienced no pain while walking down the stairs that evening or the next morning.

Two days later I was back for a second session at the sports physio for some dry needing, not the most pleasant experience ever having needles stuck into my leg but its certainly bringing results.  But lots of bruises as well!

My aim now is to take it very easy until Christmas or whenever things feel better, this week I'm going to start back with a few more morning runs at a slow pace because up until now I've been only doing one or maybe two morning runs in the race if even that.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Houston we have a problem!

There's not been many blog updates lately mainly because I've been doing very little running lately.

I know my legs took a beating during the Dublin Marathon and with hindsight now it likely would have been the best plan to call it quits and mile 21 and call it a day, but nope! Stubborn me decided it wasn't going to be a DNF and now I'm paying for it now.

The muscles in my left leg are causing me awful issues the last while, worse then back in February of this year and its really impacting my running.   At present I'm managing just 2-3miles at a slow pace of between 8.30-9min miles...this is seriously frustrating.

The longest run I've done since Dublin was a trail run of around 12mile..about half of which I had to actually walk due to the poor trail conditions (and it was dark but thats another story!) but even with that I really felt it in my left leg the next day as I was experiencing pain when walking down stairs.

I've been into the local sports injury clinic and had some work done on it during the week and while it hurt like hell at the time its really helped, so hopefully that will get me back on track with a few more sessions and stretching.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Dublin Marathon Recovery and looking back

Its been over a week since Dublin and initially it wasn't particularly enjoyable, well ok my legs were
stiff but I've experienced far far worse before so its not the end of the world or anything.

The day after the Marathon I took on a 1.5mile recovery run as well as using the foam roller afterwards, recovery runs are never particularly enjoyable the first day or second day after a longer race but in my experience they are somewhat of a necessary evil as they really help loosen up the legs for me and they did help alot towards feeling back to normal.

Wednesday was no running and so was Thursday, by this point my legs were still feeling heavy especially when in bed but I opted to take in a nice slow 4mile ran on Friday morning and took on 8miles on Sunday morning

Looking back, was running Dublin a clever idea when I wasn't 100%?...well no, it was neither big nor clever but I'd have been seriously pissed with myself if I didn't and I would have always wondered so I certainly don't regret it.

Should I have perhaps aimed for a sub 3:30 time instead........in hindsight without a doubt yes, but then hindsight is 20:20 and I didn't know I'd only get to around mile 21 before the rug would be pulled from underneath me and I'd run into such problems.

All in all it was a learning experience, sure I could get away with running a short fast race when not 100%, hell I'd even get away with a longer slower race while not 100% but aiming for a marathon and trying to get a PB at the same time just isn't that do-able.   I guess you live and learn in that situation.