Monday 14 June 2010

Up & Then Down

I haven’t written anything in a while because it’s all gone to buggery. I don’t like writing when things are like this because it’s just a long rant with me complaining like a small child. I CAN’T RUN! WAAH! I’M RUBBISH AT RUNNING! SOB! So, I’ll try and keep this as short as possible.

After the Leeds Half I quite deservedly spent a week doing very little exercise. Full of enthusiasm, I constructed a new training program and started training again. I expected to be fit and full of energy after my week off. I just wanted to get out and start upping my pace and endurance. For all my confidence my legs just wouldn’t play ball. It felt like I was running in lead shoes. It soon became evident that my legs hadn’t recovered from the race and I sensibly decided to take it easy for the rest of the week. Then, according to Sod’s Law I got a stinking cold. So three weeks from the race and I’d only ran short slow runs and had not been able to train properly.

During this time I started playing five-aside football on a Fridays. I thought that this would help keep my fitness up during my dip in training. Unfortunately, I played a game after my cold abated and tore both hamstrings whilst sprinting for a ball. Fuck! I couldn’t walk right for a week let alone train. This last week I did some gentle runs but my hamstrings felt very tight and I didn’t want to push it. It’s now five weeks since the Leeds Half and I haven’t been able to do much speed work or any long endurance runs at all.

It’s annoying because I feel that my fitness is there but my legs or general health are competing to keep me from training. I’ve tried to keep cross training but there has been an inevitable decline in my fitness. Bum! Also, my diet has been all over the place. It seems I need the daily training sessions to help keep the calorie intake down.

There are things to learn from all of this. Firstly, being pretty new at running I think I have to accept that it’s going to take me slightly longer than expected to recover from races. This should have been accounted for in any training schedule. Secondly, getting ill happens. It’s depressing but that’s life. Thirdly, I don’t think that contact sports like football mix well with my running training. I like playing football but I like running more.

I’m off my feet for the next couple of days which will hopefully mean that my hamstrings will fully recover. Then I’ll go for an easy run to see how the legs are. If all goes well I will finally be able to start a proper training regime for the Snowdonia Marathon. Fingers crossed.