First Race of 2010

It’s been touch and go whether I’d make it to this Sunday’s Sheffield Half Marathon but it’s looking like I’ll be lining up with 5,499 others for the 13.1 miles through Sheffield’s streets.

My last post before Christmas promised more effort, more focus, more training. In the immortal words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad. I’ve certainly been pretty focused, and it’s seemed like a lot of effort but as for more training, well……..

It all started so well with regular runs to and from work in January, despite the snow. I took it nice and steady, with a good slow build up, and then in early Feb something happened inside my knee which meant I was unable to run for a month. Trips to physio, GP and knee specialist determined it’s most likely a meniscal tear. I’m awaiting the results of a recent MRI scan on it to determine the next steps (excuse the pun).

Despite this, a long weekend of snowboarding, a bout of tonsillitis and further winter ailments, I’m back running and hoping for the best. There’s no pain as such now when I run (not in the knee at least) but it feels a bit odd, kind of tight and a bit tender. I gave it a real wallop when snowboarding too which hasn’t helped so I’m not sure if it’s the aftermath of that, or something linked to the original injury. I’ve only stretched the training runs to 75 mins max so far so the half marathon should be an interesting test – I’m certainly not aiming for a PB.

Peaks & troughs

I must break out of my recent "training" programme of nothing at all and then a silly long event or session. After the Rat Race in August, a rather lazy summer was rudely interrupted by a trip to RIbblehead to tackle the Yorkshire Three Peaks. It wasn't an organised event or anything but an informal trot around aas fast as we could manage, aiming to 1) beat some walkers we knew who were setting off ahead of us and 2) be as close to the cut off time of 5hours 10 for the official 3 Peaks fell race in April.

We achieved the first objective with ease, but coming in after 7 hours 30 mins wasn't exactly a storming result. The first hill (Whernside) was fine, and the descent off it was really good fun, but after only 2 and a half hours, on the way up Ingleborough, our legs were feeling it. A lot. Our strategy of walk uphill, run the rest, was amended to reflect the state of our fitness and so the day went on. Overall I think it was a fair performance given the lack of training we'd done for it, but I have liked to have done better - i.e. I should have trained more.

Following the Three Peaks, another period of mostly doing nothing (the odd mountain bike ride in the dark followed by the pub quiz isn't really training properly) this coming weekend is supposed to be the OMM in mid-Wales, following the pattern of just one massive training session per month which I've adopted recently. However, my training/racing partner Richard is currently popping Tamiflu instead of carbo loading and so our participation hangs by a thread and will need to be reassessed later in the week.

And after this weekend, no matter whether we race (I use the term in the sense that it is a race and we are participating - I don't think we'd be racing even if both of us were in perfect health) or not, I promise that I will be running more frequently as of next week.