Injury scare and new shoes!!

Ooops!  Fell of the wagon again.  It does take me a while to build a habit but then once I do I'm on rails and dislike not doing what I'm supposed to so need to treat this blogging like salads and lunges!

Speaking of habits I need to pick up I had been dallying with some strength work and a bit of stretching to compliment my running but not with any regularity.  Well trust the universe to give me a good kick in the arse quite literally.

To give you some background I have been building up my mileage from a base of about 20miles a week after the marathon and in January back to 25-30miles in the last few weeks.  I was hoping to then gradually build this up to 40-50 by mid summer with the aim of being able to build up to a marathon from that base quite easily should I feel like it.  Anyway there I was going my merry little way with nary a thought of my poor stressed muscles, ligaments and tendons.  Surely disaster was about to strike!?

Last week I had put a target of 32 miles in place.  Started well with 10 on Monday feeling fine.  Rested Tuesday and went to the track for 8x400 on Wednesday which with a warm-up and cool down came to about 5 miles total.  Thursday was where I made a major mistake.  I usually meet similar paced friends from the club for a couple of easy 2.5mile laps following the speed work the previous night but wanted to get some extra distance in so arrived early.  Only to be met by the friendly, lovely, but much too speedy L & P.  Now these guys insisted that I should tag along with them as they were doing an easy recovery run anyway.  I argued briefly but allowed my arm to be twisted......silly girl!!!  I could tell they were slowing down for me but we still did the first lap at an average 8:10min/mile.......this is not recovery pace for me and I was not warmed up after a long day at a desk and an hours drive home.  Sure enough I started to feel discomfort along my left side about half way through the first lap.  Oh no!  Typically I was too busy trying to pretend I was ok at that pace to say anything so I waited until the end of the lap to stop......and then continued to do two more laps at a slower pace for a total of 7 miles.  By the time I got home I couldn't even decide where it hurt except that I ached all down my left side from under my ribcage to the ankle.  Fully. My. Fault.

This is where I do something smart for a change!!!  I rested.   I was very scared that this was something that would put me out of running for a few weeks or even months so while the discomfort wasn't that bad I decided to be conservative.  I read around and figured out it could be my IT band (have had issues there before) bursitis of the hip or something involving one of the glutes.  Or! Or!  It could just be my back which might sound more serious but if its only my back I know exactly where I stand from long experience and I know I can run on it.  Yay!
So I foam rolled and had a hot bath.  I self massaged and yoga'd.  I youtubed and as a result, myrtled (look it up!)  Everything that was in my arsenal I used except painkillers as a) I wasn't in enough pain and b) I wanted to locate the source of the discomfort.  By yesterday I still had pain to my ankle and this was very good news!  I've had sciatica enough to know that thats probably what it was.

I was going to go for a short trot yesterday to test it but sanity ruled and I left it until this morning.  There was a group from the club doing a ten miler at ten but again, good sense reigned and I decided to go by myself so I had control of the variables.  I wanted a few things.  Firstly I wanted time to do a proper warm up and to start slowly and work up to my own easy pace so I could watch my form.  Secondly I wanted to run on grass and I'm fairly sure the 10 miler would be mostly on road and thirdly (and relatedly) I didn't want a road camber to irritate my hips.  Anyway I set out in the pouring rain but I didn't care cos it was pain free for all 6 miles.  Yippee!!  Got back and did the stretches and strength work again and I'm still feeling good....pretty sure it's lower back pain.  Fingers crossed I can get back to building up my miles....phew!

Also I bought new shoes but I haven't gotten to wear them yet and this post is too long so I'll put up a pic in my next post.

Life changer

So I broke up with my partner this weekend. This means big big changes including a move for me in the next few days......bummer :(
This bombshell necessitated several vodkas Friday night which made Saturday mornings 6 miler interesting but at least I was out there. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to run my way through this crisis.
Thank god for my kids, parents and good friends!

Obviously rubbish at this blog business

So here I go again after another massive gap.  How many posts is that in total? 5? Over 3 months?  Big medal for me I think!
Right...so I did Dublin Marathon.  Missed my time goal by 9 minutes but in the end I really wasn't bothered....just wanted to finish.  Is it a cliche to say it was one of the hardest things I've ever done?  Well it was.  So tough that for days afterwards if I started thinking about it or if the subject came up with someone or over the radio I would find myself welling up.  I realise that this makes it sound emotional in a quite sentimental way but it wasn't like that at all.  I've probably only faced myself warts and all in the way I did over those last few miles of those 26.2 twice before in my life and both were during childbirth.  Similarly to labour I had no interest in ever doing it again right after but starting considering it again the next day.....the mind is a really funny thing.
Wonder if it's easier the second time around?  Anyway it won't be for a while...possibly not even next year, we will see!  Maybe I should do a race report while I still remember it so I can compare to next time?

I felt like I recovered quite well from the marathon..no major problems.  Did a half last weekend to round out the season while I still had the miles in my legs.  Didn't love it as lots of it was on a beach and I now know that I hate to run on sand.  Time was ok - 1:51:44.

So what's next?

Cross country season!  Have been training with the local athletics club for the last few weeks and I think the coach likes to throw everyone in at the deep end so I'm showing up a 4k ladies race on Sunday morning.  Nobody is making me but I would never have volunteered myself so I guess I should be grateful as I'd never ever have even though to enter.  Please please please don't let me come last!  That's all I ask. 

Everyone at the club seems to be really nice and friendly so hopefully this will all be positive.  Keep me on the straight and narrow just a little bit longer before I let loose for the Christmas!   

Ooops!

So I sort of forgot to write anything for the last few weeks...a combination of laziness and lack of access to a computer. My phone is banjaxed too and that has been my backup. Must try harder young(ish) lady! Training for the marathon continues and I'm now officially on taper. Yay! So so delighted about this as the last few weeks of running have been quite tough, just never really felt rested on a run and my longer races have been really really tough to the point where I questioned my level of fitness. Anyway it's done now so no point worrying too much about it until race day. Time to recuperate and focus on shorter quality sessions and staying healthy. Now is not the time to catch a cold! In other running news I have another new pb over 10k! 47:40 which is also a full 5 minutes faster than I ran the same race last year. Absolutely delighted with that. This is even more impressive when you consider that we ended up in the pub Friday night for more beers than was a good idea at any time and definitely not the night before a race. Not very clever at all! Anyway it all worked out ok in the end so no harm done. Next big goal is sub 45 but I'm not holding my breath for that for a while. It took me so long to get under 50 minutes that I can't believe I'm actually considering sub 45 at all. I'm starting to feel like I might have some real speed in my legs (relatively speaking!)

Last solo!

I'm very excited to say that I did my last solo long run for quite a while last week!  Next weekend I have a kilomarathon (26.2km) and after that a 3/4 marathon (30ish km.)  I'm lucky in that I quite enjoy the time by myself that I get while running and I have no desire to run with groups regularly but it will be nice to have that energy for the next few weeks.  Does that make me seem really antisocial?

Will have to fit one more long run in after that and then it's taper time....otherwise known as Breaking Bad binge watch and Italian food eating frenzy time.  Can't wait!

In other news I had my first sports massage last week.  Naively I booked this on my birthday for a little treat for myself?  This was the opposite of relaxing.  50 minutes of undignified screeching later and I was officially feeling very sorry for myself indeed.....oh well!  Get over it you big jessie!

Happily the physio said I don't have any obvious problem areas and am surprisingly ok for a first marathon training cycle so that's good.  I'm wondering how painful the massage would be if I was having problems?

Speaking of birthday presents I did get a lovely surprise from the BF..... a garmin 210 with a hr strap.  What a guy!  He knows it's something I would never have gotten around to buying for myself (cos I'm not a real runner people!) but I'm delighted with it...and him the big handsome devil :)  Brought it out for a spin that very day.

Look at me adding pictures and everything!

Really sad to hear about the death of one of the half marathon runners in the Phoenix Park today.  I know that statistically these things do happen every now and again but it's always a terrible shock when it does and stats are very little help to the friends and family of this young man. Hopefully every young healthy person who is lost brings us one step closer to getting to the bottom of these syndromes.

Long run 3

The third of my long runs done today.... Yay!  Happy with that as my legs were still a bit tired after Sunday's effort.
As usual for me the first 5k sucked quite a bit.  This was not helped by realising I needed to pee just after I left.
Added to that I had decided to try a new route that seemed to go past loads of private homes but no handy little fields for me to jump into for a tinkle. Boo :( 

Found a quiet field in the end after about 7k to my relief and my legs had warmed up at that stage so it was all fairly easy (for a 30k run) after that.

Feeling ok this evening so maybe that means I'm getting used to the distance?  Major sweet tooth though, would give given my right arm for a giant galaxy bar this evening!

(Short) race day

So this second post took me a little longer than expected. Luckily lack of writing hasn't meant lack of training.... Plenty of running going on!

I've done two 30k long runs now so happy with that. The first I thoroughly enjoyed, probably due to the novelty of it. The second was harder although it was a couple of days after a wedding so it may have been partially dehydration and alcohol.
Anyway they are done and both in negative splits so that was good.

So back to today. Doing a local charity 10k so will do a few k as a warm up and then something similar after to turn it into a decent distance tempo run. Looking forward to it mostly but a little bit nervous as I'm hoping to pb by quite a bit. Always a bit more pressure over a familiar distance as you know what kind of time you should be doing.

The next few races I'm signed up for are all longer odd distances so not so much pressure and also makes it easy to get the long run in!

Fingers crossed for today and I'll update later. Must also put up my pb's over common distances so I can keep a record of improvements (if any.)

Update
New pb over 10k. No official chip time up yet but looks like around 49 mins. Yay!  Been trying to get under 50 for a year so delighted with that.

Update on the update
48.57!!! Yay!!!