Cool Running Ramblings : Issue 5
So following a freak accident involving my left foot and the sharpened heel of a five year old I now found myself scratching my backside at home, under doctor’s orders. In truth I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a welcome break from the relentless routine of running four times a week but after only a few weeks I realised that I was actually missing running. Never saw that one coming!
So what are you supposed to do when you’re injured? Well I carried on mapping out imaginary running routes for a while but virtual street pounding seems somewhat hollow after a few evenings. I bought a new running watch and heart rate monitor which I was so itching to use I had to stop myself from testing it up and down the stairs at the office. My most desperate injury achievement however was a lovely spreadsheet to measure my training progress. I took guilty comfort in knowing that I would be able to compare target to actual pace as my training progressed (expressed as a percentage, obviously). It was clear to me that I really, REALLY needed to get out of the house!
Finally my eight weeks were just about up and I gingerly went for a mile long jog in a grassy park to test my foot, thankfully with no apparent ill effects apart from realising how much fitness I’d lost in the eight week layoff. I left it another few days to see how my foot reacted and once again diligently applied a bag of frozen peas for twenty minutes after a slightly longer three mile run. There was a little achiness but nothing even close to the pain I had encountered previously and I nervously began to believe that I might be fixed.
That same day I went to one of the training days that the Brighton Marathon people have organised which gave some excellent training tips (like stop eating cakes, which I reluctantly have) and a presentation by a physio to show the best ways to avoid injury. I wasn’t sure whether or not to mention to the collected audience that letting five year olds climb up you and then jump down was really bad for your feet but I had a sneaking suspicion that it might just make me look like a weirdo. There was also a couple of running machines set up where it seemed that my new running shoes were correcting the pronation in my gait perfectly, which was very pleasing having just shelled out eighty quid for them. Another bonus was the chance to sample all of the cereal bars and electrolyte chews kindly being demonstrated by the nice people at Clif. I can categorically state that Electrolyte chews are much tastier than they sound and that Clif Bars are delicious!
Two days later and the first run of my 23 week training plan was finally upon me. At 6.15am I left the house for a three mile run and once again, as advised by our occupational health physio, I duly iced my foot for twenty minutes afterwards. Two more three mile runs that week followed by a lovely six mile run in the autumn sunshine round Willen Lake in Milton Keynes (thank you gb-mapometer.com) and week one of my 23 week plan was over. My recently injured foot had almost no soreness and I was back in marathon business!
With hindsight, my injury could not have come at a better time as it meant that I still had the whole of my training program available to me before the race and it also taught me the importance of listening to your body when you’re injured. Stoically plodding on through the pain of a niggling injury will only serve to make it worse. Rest and treatment should be sought at the first opportunity was the valuable lesson I had learned.
