Feeling Like a Runner Again!

I'm very happy to report that 8 weeks out from the World Duathlon Champs and I finally feel like a runner again!

On Sunday I had my first 10km race of the year - the Leigh Legacy 10km, an off road race that I'd entered out of necessity rather than feeling like I was capable of having a good run at this distance. My boyfriend had encouraged me to enter so I'd know where I was at over 10km - after all in 8 weeks I'm going to have to run 10km, then cycle, then run again, so I need to move towards longer races and build up my stamina as soon as possible. In the week before the race I was quite nervous about running the distance - I'd only managed one run longer than 10km since injury, and I was worried that it would be horrendous and painful and that I wouldn't be ready for it! With quite a bit of encouragement I'd entered with the aim of assessing my fitness over 10km and giving myself a marker to improve on.

I woke up feeling super keen and couldn't wait to run! It was pouring with rain and with the course going round Pennington Flash it was going to be very muddy - perfect conditions for a Sunday run really!
In my enthusiasm to run I kind of forgot I'd been injured and struggling to run and just warmed up as normal. For the 5km's I've done I've been very aware that I'm coming back from injury and have only done short warm ups so that the total distance run that day doesn't go to high. On Sunday I forgot all about this and did a 15min jog to warm up, my normal stretching routine with hip mobility exercises to try and prevent the tightness I've had in my hip over the last few weeks, and then I even did some strides before bouncing around on the start line - I actually couldn't wait to race! All the races I've done this year I've not stretched beforehand, as I haven't been able to - so even the warm up was a huge improvement.

Lining up on the start line under the inflatable banner with music pumping all around I was very happy to be out in the rain on a Sunday morning. Chatting to another runner, Louise, who I recognised from a few 5kms I've done this Summer (she's won them all!) I found out that the course was quite hilly.
Good thing I was warned about this as it helped me pace my efforts up the hills and I was prepared for a tough race throughout!

I set off at a fairly easy pace, aiming to get round the whole course in one piece! With this being my first 10km I was unsure how I'd cope with trying to run hard over the distance and didn't want to over do it in the first 2km. After about 2.5km I was running along the canal and the gaps in front were getting quite big. I know how easy it can be to switch off when you find yourself in a big gap and I wanted to make this race as easy for myself as possible, so when a guy came past me, I took the decision to put a little bit more effort in and try and hang on to him. I picked up the pace slightly and then actually found the race easier as he was a great wind block and was gradually moving through the field picking off other runners! With every kilometre that passed I challenged myself to stay with him for another km, and another km, and I did so until we got to 8.5km when he started to move away. I tried to pick up the pace to go with him, but just didn't have it left in my legs and from that point I'm happy that I didn't drop my pace at all, but he speeded up quite a bit!
When I came back into Leigh Sports Village my boyfriend was excitedly jumping up and down (well, almost jumping up and down!) at how well I was doing and although I got out sprinted at the finish by a fast finishing man, I was over the moon to cross the line in 43.13! WAAAYYYY faster than I was expecting, and I felt great and finally like a proper runner again! And to top it all off, I came 3rd Lady and won a meal at the nearby Radisson restaurant!
After this I feel a lot more positive about my chances of getting fit in time for the World Duathlon Champs as it's a huge step in the right direction! If I find any photos of me running around in the pouring rain like a very happy but very drowned rat, I'll update later!

Tendonitis to Training : Slow Progress!

Last Monday I was feeling very disheartened with my progress.
I was trying to run for 40 mins, having managed 35 the day before, and my legs were tired and just trying to run was feeling far too hard. It was a general "oh god this is so hard I'm never going to make it back to the house" type of run. I started thinking about how it's just over 2 months to the World Duathlon Champs, and I've not managed to run for 5 miles.

Luckily I snapped back to reality pretty quickly and realised there was no way I'd be ready for the World Champs if I didn't change my attitude. 40 mins might be hard work, but it was never going to get easier if I gave up! I also thought, I've probably made pretty good progress, but I've not been writing my training down so I can't see the progress I've been making. I'm constantly comparing how I feel and how far/fast I'm running to what I was doing in March - which is incredibly disheartening because that's a world away from the level I'm at now.
I decided to stop focusing on how hard running is at the moment and instead just enjoy being able to run! As soon as I did that, I had a much more enjoyable run and decided to explore a couple of new footpaths in the woods. I got home and found I'd done 45 minutes, had a lovely run and was in a much better mood. I was still really tired with all my muscles aching, but I'd managed my longest run since March and enjoyed most of it!

I also realised how important it is to record my training, so I can 1. get some perspective on my progress, and 2. plan further training to TRY and get in shape for the World Champs.

So, here it is...my training since injury, broken down by week commencing date.

28th May: 2 x 10 min run
4th June: 2 x 15 min run, 1 x 5 min bike
11th June: 2 x 20 min run, 1 x 10min bike,
***FIRST RACE: Dunham 5km: 21.37***
18th June: 1 x 10 min bike, 1 x 10 min run + 10 min bike, 1 x 20 min run
***SECOND RACE: Lymm 5km: 23.12***
25th June: 1 x 20 min run, 10 min bike, 1 x 25 min run
***THIRD RACE: Worsley Woods Park Run 5km MT: 22.16***
***TRACK RACE: Northern League 3km: 12:20.8
2nd July: 1 x 25min run, 15 min bike, 1 x 35min run, 20 min bike
***FOURTH RACE: Forest Park Ladies 5km MT: 21.47
***FIFTH RACE: Worsley Woods Park Run 5km MT: 21.41***
9th July: Tues - 40 min run, 20 min bike.
Weds - 36 min run.
Fri - 25 min run easy.
Sun - 35 min run.
16th July: Mon - 46 min run.
Tues - 10 min, 3x3min efforts, 10 min.
Thurs: ***SIXTH RACE: Sale Sizzler 5km 21.10***
Fri: 35 min run easy.
Sun 60 mins! 7.5 miles

Photos from Sale Sizzler available here

Looking back at that now I can see I'm making great progress and managing to roughly stick to adding 5 mins a week to my longest run, though I did get a bit carried away on Sunday enjoying the sunshine and being able to check out some slightly different routes to the 25-30 min ones I've been restricted to recently.

I've also been doing a lot of races and loving it!
I must confess it was quite hard to get my head round racing and being so much slower than I was a few months ago, especially finishing miles behind people I was competitive with recently. But racing so often has been great for keeping me motivated - I definitely needed some intermediate challenges before the World Champs to break things up a bit. It's also fitted in well with my training as I've needed to do a lot of ~5km runs and it's helped ensure I do something faster than a trot and put some effort in. I've also absolutely loved it - it's been great to enjoy the social side of running, see people and make some new friends from my races!
Racing has also enabled me to put in some little targets - like getting under 21.30, and now I'm aiming to get under 21 minutes at the next Sale Sizzler 5km. I've even got a couple of 10km trail races planned, mostly as a training exercise so I am running hard(ish) over a longer distance, and so that when I do finally get fit, I'm not out of practise at racing.
For the first time in my life I'm actually looking forward to running a 10km this Sunday and am hopefully preparing my body to do some serious training over August and September.
It's great to be back :)

6 months of silence

Well it's been almost 6 months since I last posted anything here and I'm guessing I've lost any avid readers in that time!
Since my run in the Midlands XC Champs, I've had a very turbulent few months - both personally and sportingly. There have been some fantastic high points, and some low points. Because I'm keen to get my blog back on track and up-to-date, I'm going to skim over the last few months for now, and then probably go back in a few days time and put the details in.

I want to update my blog, because over the last few weeks I've read a couple of blogs and a book which have totally ignited my passion for sport. Chrissie Wellington's autobiography in itself deserves a separate blog post, but it made me remember how important sport is, and not just sport the sake of sport, but also the positive impact it can have on people's lives.
I've also been inspired by Joe Skipper's blog. Joe's a Manchester based Triathlete, who puts in some amazing training and gets some fantastic results. It's definitely worth a read!
Nina McArthur's blog and new website are both great reads! Nina deals with some hard issues in sport, and what I think of as the dark side of elite sport, especially given Hollie Avil's recent retirement. It's been fantastic to read about her journey and see how she's come back to triathlon and loving it!
The other blog which has really made me think about training and competing over the last few months is Paul Savage's site. His blog is a really insightful reflection on training at the top level in the real world. It's given me great perspective on how important other facets of life can be in achieving good performances in sport. Paul's also responsible for the fact I'm now back running and cycling after a very tough couple of months, which is a huge testament to his abilities as a physio. I've seen a hell of a lot of physios in the last 20 years, and he's by far and away the best!
When I've got more time, and when I'm not in the middle of writing a book length blogpost, I'll revisit all those sources of inspiration in more detail - especially Chrissie Wellington's autobiography, which initially turned me off triathlon before leaving me itching to get back competing!

I've broken the last few months down into sections as this is such a lengthy novel I'm writing...

February Bronchitis

March Smashing it to Qualify for the World Duathlon Champs

April Multiple Hospital Visits

May Tendonitis

June Tentative First Steps

So hopefully if you're interested enough to question my silence over the last few months, here's why and where it all began...

February
Bronchitis

At the end of January I felt like I was in great shape. I was so pleased with my Bronze medal at the Midland Champs and had put together a great couple of months of training. Usually by this point in the season I've lost a couple of weeks or more to illness. No matter how well I look after myself, as soon as we get a prolonged period of cold weather and snow I always pick up some sort of illness. With it almost being February, I thought I might have managed to survive this Winter. Unfortunately I was a little too optimistic this year. I ran the Midlands Champs with a bit of a cough and with the cold period that followed this turned into Bronchitis, despite me trying to be sensible and not train. I missed almost all of February with Bronchitis and had to take 2 courses of anti-biotics to shift it. I was really gutted to miss the end of the XC season. That's a total understatement! At the end of my last blog entry I wrote: "providing I can get back running soon it was probably worth it for the medal!" What a statement to make - seems like I totally cursed myself there!

So with not training for February, why wasn't I using all the spare time to update my blog and training entries?
I don't know about anybody else, but if I can't run at all I find it very very hard to be involved in the sport in anyway. Somehow even hearing about my friends' training and racing irritates me. It's hard too explain - I wish them all well, especially when I'm not racing them as they're not the opposition, but it just makes me feel worse to hear about what I'm missing out on! As a non-pro, I can't even imagine how elite athletes must feel when they're injured. For people who make a living from sport and are continually pushing themselves to be the best in the World, it must be even harder to be unable to race or train!

I recently read an interesting article, which I can't for the life of me find now, about how athletes should play video games just after sustaining injury. The research behind the article found that if the brain is distracted from the injury, the mental impact of the injury is less and recovery is quicker. They also found that by encouraging disassocciative behaviour they can minimise the long-term impact of the injury and avoid old injuries playing on athlete's minds during competition and affecting performance.

March
Smashing it to qualify for the World Duathlon Champs

To steal a phrase from Joe Skipper, who's blog I love - I spent March totally smashing out the training! This was a great month of training and my coach Phil did a fantastic job of writing a program that got me in shape for the qualifying race at Oulton Park.
It was such a great month of training I'm going to dedicate a whole post to this. As I write this post I'm in a similar situation of having missed a lot of training so I know it'll do me good to review in detail how I've managed to regain a lot of fitness in a short time!

April
Multiple Hospital Visits

At the beginning of April I was taking it easy after Qualifying for the World Duathlon Champs - ensuring my body recovered from the hard training and giving myself a mental break from the pressure.
I was sat on the sofa one evening when I felt a pain near my hip. I quickly realised it was slightly swollen, and was quite baffled. The pain grew over night and the next morning I was in agony and could hardly moved. The next week included many many visits to the doctors and hospital as the pain got worse and worse. I eventually ended up in hospital for a few days on the surgical ward after a hernia was diagnosed. However when I had the pre-surgery scans there was no sign of a hernia and it took a visit from a specialist to diagnose Adductor Tendonitis. I spent the next few weeks in agony and on lots of drugs, unable to move or sleep. I know there are plenty of worse things I could be suffering from and I don't want to sound too self-pitying, but there is something about being in too much pain to sleep which absolutely destroys me! The mysterious nature of my injury didn't help and this was compounded by my inability to make myself a cup of tea. In conclusion April is a month I would much rather forget.

May
Tendonitis

Knowing I had Adductor Tendonitis, I felt more able to take positive steps to get better - so I did a lot of internet research on tendonitis. I read a lot about how hard it is to get tendonitis to heal because of the blood flow, and how this can be helped by topical painkilers and creating the right environment in your body. I'm sure scientists will think this is a lot of mumbo jumbo, but I embarked on creating an alkaline environment in my body by drinking lots of alkaline foods like broccoli and cauliflower, and drinking lots of pineapple juice (an excellent anti-inflammatory).
I also started walking again and saw Paul Savage at Athlete Matters Physio. Paul is without a doubt the best physio I've ever seen and has helped me get back running and cycling again in what I realise now is a very short period of time! Since I got mobile again I've been getting gradually better every day and although it's felt a bit bleak at times, progress has been really positive, especially throughout June.

June
Tentative first steps
coming soon...

I think that'll do for my first post for so many months! Now I'm back running I feel like I should dedicate an entire post to my training progression - partly for my own benefit to record exactly what I've been doing and what's worked for me.
Over the last few months it's been a bad time for training, but luckily there's a hell of a lot going on in my life apart from training. Though I must admit I can easily forget this when I can't even make myself a cup of tea!
Much as I wouldn't like to admit it, the break from training has fitted in quite well with me starting a new job! I've had the time to settle in to a new routine without worrying about training and racing, though I have been taking advantage of flexi-time to fit in physio sessions. I've also had a year's worth of holidays in the last couple of months with trips to Spain and Portugal as well as a work trip to Dublin.
More updates to come soon - including the all important training blog and how I managed to qualify for the World Duathlon Champs!
Thanks for reading - all comments welcome, especially the constructive ones :)