Hopeful…

Last Saturday turned into a day to preserve my foot – got home from work on the Friday to find a swollen right foot (over the bridge area) and so decided to rest until Sunday. Which turned out to be the start day of a massively rotten cold.

So i’ve been slacking and not run for over a week.

Not good in preparation for a marathon but hopefully everything will be healed and i’ll be off shortly. I certainly want to be, which is encouraging.

Intending to rest tomorrow then see how I go, with the intention of 13 miles, on Sunday.

Updates to follow.

Too late

By the power that is my broadband, it’s taken 25 minutes to get this far, i’m now tired beyond belief so this will be brief.

Yesterday was a cold 8 miles around the far side of Moat park, with the slopes that entails. Not funny considering how much my legs are hurting just above the ankles. Seems the miles have well and truly caught up with me and it was as much about preventing injury as training properly. Pace was awful but at least not forced.

I got home intending to blog but Cathy’s bike was poorly so I fixed the gears (nasty twistgrip…bad cable change…horrible to adjust…bah!), went to bed. Simple.

This evening had the hallmarks of a slack evening as I seemed intent on talking myself out of the run. But I went anyway.

Was going to do a shorter run but got involved in running the route to Screwfix that doesn’t involve the main road but does turn out to be 5 miles almost exactly when looped into a jaunt past Morrisons. My ankles hurt, joined in their pain by my calves and the bridge of my right foot. Together with a mysteriously bruised right heel, the right plate has suffered this campaign, to be sure.

Still, as I said, tiredness beckons. Just under 18 miles for the week; if I manage my 18 on Saturday, it’ll be the longest week of my training complete – no other is planned to go beyond 35 miles. That’ll be a relief.

But i’ve got to get through Saturday yet. No drugs have been called for, neither will they be, but maybe i’ll start ditching some of the more painful runs before too long – with diminishing weeks to go, i’m not about to stuff things up having got this far. But having said that, i’ve no intention throwing a decent time down the drain, either.

Ah, that balancing act of ambition and stupidity.

Sore

Over the course of yesterday, what with shopping, chores, hanging blinds, drying the garage and planting trees, I didn’t really think about my legs.

Today I did and they felt surprisingly good after Saturday and my 17 miles. But that’s surprisingly good in a “not as bad as they could be” fashion, unfortunately. All day I was actually looking forward to the run – the sun was out, it got up to a warm enough temperature to ditch the jacket for the first time in months and my only concern was how quickly the temperature would drop.

The answer was pretty quickly (it was only 2 degrees as I got back into the car) but the run was enjoyable enough, starting warmly and finishing a bit quicker than I started to maintain the temperature i’d built up.

I ran the country lane route for the first time since the clocks changed and it was nice. If only my shins and ankles weren’t so sore, it would have been properly enjoyable but as it was, all the downhills were accompanied by hollow shrieks of pain as my feet touched down. The uphills were great. The flats were reasonable enough. Downs I could have done without. However, I started proper “recovery run” slowly and only picked the pace up towards the end when i’d loosened up a fair bit.

I feel okay ish now but am glad I haven’t got to run tomorrow – somehow I think the rest days over the coming weeks will be savoured to their highest degree.

Only 8 weeks to go.