Haven’t posted about my training recently. Its been good, until the tapering weeks!   Good 17 mile run which I felt good in warm conditions. Travelled to Bewl Water for a 20 miler but really underestimated the terrain! Mud, hills, and more hills and mud! Was really good for stamina at 12pm, managed to run 15 miles with little water and getting lost a bit, in 2hr 35mins. I was disappointed with but in hindsight, it was a good and challenging run, definitely going back there.

Tapering weeks, I had a strategy of doing almost exactly the opposite as last year. So I went to the gym more, just ran well rather than forcing pace. Looked after myself more with regards to rest and recovery. However, I had an issue with a very tight medial head of gastrocnemius, for those not in the know, the inside of the calf muscle. It just would not budge! No incident, no pain other than toe off when running. I experienced first bit of pain on March 15th when I went to warm up for a 14 miler but it was just too painful. So had 2 deep tissue massages and it didn’t improve.   I booked in with Greg Bailey at West Wickham Chiropractic, treatment was excruciating but it did help a lot. In the past 10 days I’ve used as much ice on my calf as possible. Contrast bathing Thursday night with ice baths and hot showers, and it has helped. The pain during toe off has decreased however there is still a long way to go. I was considering dropping out of the Brighton Marathon, because I know that getting a sub 4 hour marathon was going to really hurt. It would probably be as painful as my first marathon, which I didn’t need this year.

So I took my time with my decision making, and I feel more confident with it. I haven’t run since Thursday 27th where I did 9.5 miles in roughly 9:00min/miles. I’ve worked hard in the gym with leg workouts, cardio (of which I hated being on a bike indoors!), and really worked hard on the rowing ergo, getting 5,000 metres under my belt. Something I haven’t done since uni.

So leading up to the Friday 4th April, I worked quite a lot that day and tried to fit in some food preparation along with fundraising errands. I ended up going home at about 9:30pm, ice my calf until 10:30pm and went to sleep. I had a very long day ahead of me on Saturday. Woke up 5am for a 6am, 7:30am, 9 & 10am appointments. Quick break before heading to Folkestone with Bromley Rugby Club 1st xv. Got back to the club at 7:15pm, had a warm bath with Epsom salts and got to sleep at 10:30pm. Woke up at 5am on the day of the marathon feeling as if I’ve been run over by a bus. I was shattered, but I knew this was going to happen.