Injuries Galore

This year I haven’t been my normal happy and fairly regular bloggin’ self. Usually, I’m sharing my running and training for my, what seems to have become my annual, Brathay 10 Marathons in Days 10 Challenge. There are good reasons for this, and they are all called injuries!

Injury obviously can stop you running or at best significantly reduce it. When this happens to me, I start to worry I won’t be ready for the challenge I’m training for, in this case the 10in10. At times like this when I’m unsure of the outcome I prefer to stay quiet until I’m back running and have something positive to say. Since December the 27^th, yes I remember the date! I have had a cycle of injury after injury. Each time I’ve got back to any consistent training and start to think about blogging I seem to pick up another injury again and then want to be quiet and stay under the radar. On many occasions this spring I’ve had quite a lack of confidence wondering whether I will be able to make the start line of this year’s 10in10, never mind complete it. None of the injuries have been serious but each time they stall and reduce my training and consequently affect my fitness.

So that is the reason for my absence from the social media circuit, now time to fill you in with what has gone wrong. It is a long list that started at the Sunrise to Sunset challenge on 27^th December last year when I pulled my right hamstring. OK I can put up with a little lay off, I rested and by the time it was the Brathay training weekend on 8^th January I was back to running 16 miles and the problem seemed behind me. Sadly, 23^rd Jan and the Feckin Frickley Frollock marathon in Yorkshire, I’d only run 1 mile and it went again. Me being me, decided I could put up with it and still completed the marathon in a reasonable 3:52 but it was then time to rest and recover.

Now to 11^th February and the Charles Darwin day marathon and you guessed it the right hamstring went again. That’s now 3 marathons in 3 months and the same problem. I’m now getting worried let alone getting no consistency to my training.

Through February it seemed to recover only for me to start to get a sharp pain in the outside of my right hip, again more concerns.

I must thank Maria from the Injury Mechanics in Bolton for treating me over the last few months and giving me exercises to do, although I’m not as good as I should be with my homework. Maria’s positivity has helped my feel confident that the 10in10 is still “Do able”.

www.injurymechanics.com

To my relief, March saw a few pretty good weeks of training and then a reasonable time at Manchester Marathon. I started to hope my wows were all behind me. Sadly, this was not the case, Friday 22^nd April and the left hamstring decides to join the party as I was doing an evening run home from work. That was another week off running and took me into May and now awfully close to the event. I went for an easy run last week and it seemed ok, this week I’ve completed 30 miles of easy runs and it has been fine.

But wait a minute, what is the pain in my left ankle? I don’t know, surely not another problem. Oh well, still 1 week to take it a bit easy and hopefully it will go away before day 1 on Friday 13^th May. I am seeing Maria on Tuesday, hopefully a bit of treatment and pep talk will get me ready for Brathay.

Through all this period of injury I’ve also got my ongoing and probably permanent problem in my left knee. I’ve had surgery twice now on this knee due to torn meniscus and it is still giving me problems with certain movements. Running downhill being one of them, all I can do is hope it will hold up for the 10 days on the hilly Brathay course. I will just have to take it carefully especially when running downhill.

It is beginning to feel like I’m held together with Bluetac and Sellotape but even though I still having a few painful bits I have a positive mind that the game is still on for me at this year’s Brathay 10in10.

If I get through the event this year injury free, I’ll eat my running cap!

In the next couple of days, I’m going to follow up with another short blog talking about my training since 1^st January, so you know what (little) I’ve done in preparation and then we are all set for my daily blogs starting on Day 1 on lucky Friday 13^th May.