Back in the game!

I'm walking around the house, up and down stairs and I can't feel the shin splints. What's more, I ran nearly 7.5 miles earlier this evening, the first real test for my legs since resting the injury.

I took it very steadily, trying to keep my heart rate below 140 bpm, which kept my pace just over 5m 30s per kilometre throughout. I'd be very happy if I could keep that up for the marathon, but that's another story. I'm just chuffed to be back in action and that all my efforts to date weren't just for the sake of losing an inch round my waist.

Laps

Not wanting to worsen my injury, I'm sticking to grass and running round the local park, doing laps. It's not as interesting as a running a route and taking in the river but it's not as bad as I'd thought it might be and it's very soft underfoot.

The other aspect of running laps is being able to see exactly how far you've run, how far you've got left and monitor your pace without having to keep listening in to your ipod. That said, it can be a bit demoralising to turn up, run around it once and realise you've got to repeat that another ten, or so, times. So I tend not to think about that at the start and focus on my heart rate and pace.

I've gone back to training at 75% of my max heart rate, to reduce the chance of further injury and rebuild my stamina. I may have been getting carried away with myself, when the injury occurred, and running to try and beat my times rather than focusing on pacing myself. You find, that after a few weeks of running at 75%, your pace naturally increases anyway, as your muscular and cardio fitness improve.

I'll stick with laps for this week and, providing the pain doesn't worsen, get back onto my routes in time for my 16 mile session on Sunday.

4 mile warm up

OK, so I didn't make the 10k but, importantly, I'm not in pain. A half hour jog on soft grass didn't seem to set off any real pain in my left shin, just the same slight niggle I currently feel when walking.

I'll take it steadily from here and hope that I can get my training back on track.

Giving it another go

I've given the shin nearly a complete week off and the pain appears to have gone. I'm hoping I caught the injury early enough not to be in the position of having to wait weeks before doing anything.

To be on the safe side, for my first run, I'm going to do laps of the local playing field. The ground will be softer than roads and if I'm in any pain, I can stop and walk home easy enough. It's half a mile around the field and I'm aiming to complete 13 circuits to notch up 10k. Let's see how it goes...

Recuperation

Although I'm sure it didn't improve the situation, it wasn't the 15 mile run that gave me the pain in my left shin, I've had it for about a week now. I've decided to rest it for a few days and stick with the cycling to keep up with some of my cardiovascular exercise at least.

Walking down stairs is painful, running less so, strangely, but it does seem increasingly likely that I'm getting shin splints. Rest, ice, elevation, proper shoes, softer surfaces and, most importantly, not increasing the mileage too quickly. I've been doing most of these quite well, I'd thought. The mileage increase is the one factor I can't control so well as, to run a marathon, you have to build up the mileage in time for the race.

C'est la vie. I'll pick up my training again on Thursday, or leave it until the weekend and just start it off with a gentle jog and see how it goes.

Non-stop for 141 minutes

Today I took on the first run that would take me comfortably past the half marathon mark and give me a glimpse into what's to come in the second half. I wasn't wired up to my ipod, having left it at work, so I'm not sure of the exact distance covered, but it's somewhere between 14 and 15 miles. On sections, where I knew the distance I was covering, I seemed to be keeping my pace at a steady 5m 50s per kilometre, which suggests that I ran at least 24km.

I just about managed to walk round the supermarket after the run, having dunked myself into an ice cold bath, which I've read can help your muscles recover more quickly. My guess is that I'll still be hobbling down the stairs tomorrow and taking the lift at every opportunity.

Passing the half marathon barrier has definitely boosted my confidence, but at the same time, reinforced exactly what you take on when you choose to run a marathon. The lead weight excuse for legs that I'm shuffling around with now, would definitely not have endured another 2 hours of running.

All in though, I've had a great week, the pasta and muesli are back in the diet, I'm sleeping better and I've racked up 31 training miles, so I'm pretty happy.

7 miles on a school night

The training's definitely back on track this week with a hilly 3.5 mile, a lunchtime 4.5 mile and an evening 7 mile run on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

I've quit cycling. For the time being, at least. Ever since the 12 mile run a couple of weeks back, I don't really feel like I've regained my energy. I think a number of contributing factors are at play which have lead to my diet and sleeping patterns being disrupted. Dump 80 miles cycling a week on top of already flagging energy levels and you haven't exactly got the most conducive base for putting in a few miles on foot in between.

So, cycling, chocolate flavoured cereal (said the diet had got a little disrupted!) and ready meals are on hold and the district line, muesli and more pasta are back in. As soon as I feel I can swap the cereal options back the way they were, I will. Did I say cereal? I meant to say transport, of course.

Not so fair weather jogger

Well, I've quickly turned my fair weather jogger status around. Put in a quick and hilly 5k run this evening and got drenched in the process. Lovely.

All eyes on the 14 mile run I have to take on on Sunday. Not completely tiring myself out before then is going to be key.

Fair weather jogger

Running at the weekend gets really tricky when you're away, visiting people. For starters, excuses such as "I need to get an early night" and "No wine for me, thanks" don't seem to roll off the tongue and may seem a little rude at the time, so of course you oblige. Combine that with waking up in unfamiliar surroundings with a gale blowing outside and the rain beating down and you've got a recipe for no action.

Well, I'm happy to say that I managed to get 50% of my running done but, sadly, not all. I got up and ran 6 miles, around Kidderminster, before breakfast on Saturday. Sunday morning, we were in North Wales, it was raining, I was exhausted and I didn't make it. I did pass 250km racked up on my ipod, so Nike gave me a certificate (see right)!

It was only supposed to be a 7 miler, not the Sunday long run, that's next weekend. And it's the long ones that are said to be the key to the training.

This week's mileage: 18.5

Red Meat

Perhaps it's something to do with kicking off the week with a 12 mile run in 30 degree heat, followed by cycling to work for 20 miles a day while keeping up with the strict mid-week running schedule. But I'm tired. And I know you've read this before, but I'm physically exhausting myself. Following a snippet of advice from a friend at work, I sneaked out to buy 4 steaks for tonight's supper to increase my amount of red meat intake. I felt that two steaks should do the trick! The proof is in the eating, well, not entirely true, it will more likely be in whether I'm still struggling to move tomorrow.

Was supposed to run 6 miles last night, but cut myself some slack and ran 4.5 and repeated with another 4.5 at lunchtime today. It leaves me 2 miles adrift of my schedule for the week, but I'm 60 miles up on the cycling front, so if you count 3 miles cycling as 1 mile running, I'm laughing. If...

12 sweet miles

Another longest run session today. This time, three of us set out on the hottest day of the year to run along rivers¹, up and down mountains² and across a desert³ for a total of 12 miles. The support unit was there, with 3 times the amount of water loaded for the journey, while myself and Uncle Rico paced it out around the course.

The pace was not too fast, not too slow at around the 5m45s per kilometre mark. It was steady enough to sustain throughout excepting a quick sharp hill and the inevitable 500 metre sprint to the finish line. Definitely a mental help having a running partner alongside, although we're going to make sure we have identical tops for the next session as clothing coordination is all important.

It's good to feel that the half marathon is all but achieved and that my initial fears of an injury, haven't yet developed into anything worth noting. I have an array of exercises to keep the injuries in check and they seem to have helped thus far.

¹Actually one river, namely the Thames
²Technically speaking, these were hills
³The tracks through Richmond Park were quite dusty

Still on track

The blog may be the occasional day behind but the training has not been suffering. Despite not getting home until nearly 8:30 this evening, I did manage to squeeze in a 4 mile run off the back of my 10 mile cycle.

Now it's all attention focused on this weekend's nearly half-marathon around Richmond Park and the surrounds. I've got a 12 mile route all lined up and the weather is throwing 27 degrees of heat my way. The up side of a terrible summer, for a *runner at least, is that it's not too hot to train in. Still, all good things have to come to an end, so I'll just have to put up with the heat and work on my tan.

*Weird. I just referred to myself as a runner. Well, I'm doing a lot of it, but I'm not sure my style would go down well amongst real runners.