Hips Don’t Lie

The following anecdote is missing a few details such as who gave the quote and when, but hopefully the general situation will be sufficient to make my point. Many years ago I was watching a documentary about the England Men’s Rugby Union team, and one of the props was asked whether he was 100% fit ahead of a specific match. His response was “You are never 100%”, and by that he didn’t mean that perfection is impossible when it comes to physical conditioning. Instead, he explained that due to the nature of the sport, you are always carrying at least a slight knock. The question is how significant that knock is, whether you can safely make it onto the pitch and given your condition, whether someone else in better condition would be a better choice to play.

Running is a slightly different scenario. For many, selection won’t be a consideration, and whilst perfection is still impossible, as running is not a contact sport it is slightly easier to arrive at an event injury free. That has been the case for the majority of the events I’ve entered, and of the events I haven’t started, more have been due to illness than injury.

Nevertheless, injuries do come along from time to time, and just like in Rugby or any other sport, injury management becomes key. There are times when training through an injury will help the recovery, times when it will very much hinder the recovery and times when training won’t make the injury worse, but will still prolong the issue compared to rest or gentler forms of rehab.

My current hip flexor injury falls very much into this final category. I ran today and the first 15 minutes were particularly sore. The pain did ease after that, but it was still a difficult run. My form was awful as I felt like I was limping rather than running and I had very little energy. I did enjoy exploring a new route from Draycote Water over to the Cawston Greenway, but the actual running was not fun.

My only pain-free run in recent weeks was the Windermere Marathon, which at least gives me encouragement that I can manage this injury whilst still continuing to run. During the week leading up to the Marathon, I only ran twice, and that seems like the right amount of runs per week to plan around for the next few weeks. I have a 10k in a fortnight and a Half Marathon a fortnight after that, so I’m probably going to stick to this plan until at least that point, possibly through to the triathlon at the end of July. After that I have no events booked until mid-September, so I can probably afford to take a bit of time completely off if the injury is still niggling, albeit I’m very much hoping that isn’t the case.

Two runs per week is nice and simple logistically. I’ll do one weekend run and then one midweek. Replacing some runs with bike rides or swims is no major problem, given that leading up to the triathlon that is something I would have been doing anyway, though I do have to be mindful of the type of running I was doing. On a typical week, I would have one weekend long run of upwards of two hours, one midweek long run of 60-90 minutes, one recovery run, one interval session and then either a 5k effort or another recovery run depending on how I was feeling. I also had a cross-training day and a rest day, and this schedule worked well in terms of building speed, power and stamina simultaneously.

As I’ve reduced my running over recent weeks, my VO2 Max on my watch has dropped from 57 down to 52. My watch is primarily a running watch despite being able to track other activities, and it seems to have more difficult calculating VO2 Max and training load through a multi-sport training plan compared to a running-only training plan, and I’m not sure the drop has been quite so dramatic. Whilst I didn’t feel great on today’s run, I did feel a lot stronger on Friday’s bike ride.

Nevertheless, my VO2 Max has almost certainly dropped, because I’ve substituted some of my hard training runs for easy paced bike rides or swims. These activities are already easier than running by being non-load bearing, so by taking the session easy, I’m losing intensity within my training.

This is something I have to be aware of. If I book myself in the medium lane rather than the slow lane at the swimming pool, that will force me into a harder effort, and I can push hard at times on the bike too. Probably not on the commute to work, but on some of the ride home and definitely on some of my other bike rides I can look to incorporate a bit of interval training.

Bank Holiday Bonanza!

Normal weekends never seem to be long enough. Admittedly this weekend already seems to be dragging, but that’s only because I was on Annual Leave last week, so could get everything I needed to do sorted during the week. On a regular weekend, there’s always a trade off between the things I want to be doing and the things I need to be doing, like the cleaning and washing. Which is why Bank Holidays are always fantastic, because you have one or sometimes two extra days to fit in the things you want to do alongside the things you need to do. During the last Bank Holiday weekend I bought my bike and took it out for a couple of rides, over Easter I completed my longest training run during my Marathon training block and often I’ve used the time to take on a specific challenge, such as my 5 Hour Timed Run on Good Friday 2021.

For the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend, I’m therefore keen as always to make the most of it, but the time just isn’t right for the challenge I really want to do. That challenge is running the entirety of the A Coventry Way, as it is the perfect time of year to be doing that challenge. The weather forecast is looking relatively cool but dry, the days are long enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about finishing in the dark and the footpaths aren’t yet overgrown. But it will still be within two weeks of running the Windermere Marathon, so I’ll have to wait for another time when although the conditions may not be so ideal, my body will hopefully stand a better chance of holding up throughout the challenge.

There isn’t an alternative challenge which would motivate me in the same way right now, so I’m going in a completely different direction with plenty of different activities instead. I’ve set aside Thursday for a long bike ride. I’m going to work my way down routes I know to get to the Stratford Greenway, and from there continue south into the Cotswolds. From there I’ll see where the mood takes me before making my way to the nearest open railway station and getting the train home. Given I managed 3 hours yesterday and ran for almost 4 hours last Sunday, that’s probably the sort of duration I’ll be looking at, though given it will be a point-to-point route wind direction will be a key factor.

The specific details of Friday are ones I will figure out closer to the time, most likely on the day. I’ve booked a swim at Newbold Comyn, which is 5-6 miles away depending on my route, so it is quite likely that I will cycle there and back. I’m quite tempted to run the Leamington parkrun course whilst I am there, or alternatively run when I get back home, but that will be dependent on how my next couple of runs go.

The one run I am definitely going to do is parkrun on Saturday morning. I managed a slightly faster time this morning than I was anticipating, but it was a moderate effort only. I’ve only raced parkrun twice since mid-February, and so I want to see what happens if I do ahead of the Two Castles 10k the following weekend, with the goal of deciding in advance whether to race or just enjoy the run. I may also try cycling to parkrun.

Sunday is the day I’m most looking forward to. It’s another swim, but this time an open water swim at Compton Verney. This will be my first time swimming outdoors, and given how much more enjoyable I find running or cycling outdoors compared to indoors, I’m excited to see whether the experience of swimming outdoors will be comparable. It will also be my first time swimming in a wetsuit which I ordered earlier today, along with a tri-suit.

Compton Verney is a great place from which to start a run or bike ride too, though not on Sunday. There will be a lot of new things to get used to, so I just want to concentrate on those and see how I feel afterwards. I did however book the session as part of 5 sessions for £40 offer, which makes it not too much more expensive than a normal pool swim, so I can always look at those options after one of the future sessions. I’m planning to book all 5 sessions between now and the triathlon at the end of July, which hopefully means the only thing which will be truly new to me during the event will be the transitions.

Learning Long Rides

When I entered RideLondon in 2013, it’s fair to say I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d done a fair amount of cycling between 2010 and 2012, but those were on Warwickshire roads I was very familiar with and I rarely went out for much more than an hour. The prospect of riding 100 miles meant training in a completely different way, with the added challenge of doing so in a city I had only been living in for a few months.

I had three main sessions. The first was a pre-work ride to Greenwich park, where I did a number of hill reps before returning home. If I didn’t get out before work that route became too busy, so my evening rides were a short, flat circuit in Rotherhithe that I would do as many times as I could in one hour. Both of these sessions were pretty good for my power, but both were relatively short and also gave me limited opportunities to practice things like bike handling, riding amongst other cyclists or fuelling, all skills I would need for the event.

My long rides were the opportunity to test those skills and also build endurance, but I never really thought about that at the time. Nor did I think about taking my long rides easy to build stamina over time. Instead, I just decided on a planned distance and tried to ride as hard as I could from start to finish. Doing this occasionally might have been okay, but doing it on every long ride meant I was too fatigued to add an extra session in during the week, or build my mileage in the way I’d planned. I think initially I wanted to have a 75 mile ride logged before the 100 mile event, but I think my longest ride ended up being 55 miles, leaving me feeling very uncertain as to whether I could actually complete the event.

Though I did manage to complete the event, as I look to ride regularly throughout the Summer this year I know there is a lot I can improve on. My Marathons and long training runs have taught me how beneficial an easy pace can be when you are looking to build endurance, and the good thing about cycling is that an easy pace comes a lot more naturally than when running. I spent the best part of 90 minutes in zone 1 or zone 2 today, and a further 55 minutes in zone 3. By contrast during Sunday’s Marathon, I spent just 10 minutes across zones 1-3, despite it being a longer activity in terms of time by almost an hour.

I’ll also take a similar approach in terms of route planning as I do with my long runs too. I’ll head out with a general route in my head, but with the licence to explore anywhere I spot which looks like it could be interesting. The added advantage is that whilst I rarely run with my phone, I always take my phone out with me on the bike, just in case I have the type of mechanical issue I cannot fix at the side of the road. Therefore if I do get lost, or just want to see where a road goes before potentially setting out on it, I can check Google Maps at any time. Today’s ride was on a route I knew fairly well from various runs, but I did still use the map on my way back, just to check how much further it would be to test one of the alternative routes home from work would be. It looked quite a bit further, and since I had been riding into a strong headwind all of the way back, decided that the most direct route was probably the best.

Fuelling was one of the focal points of my long runs building up to Windermere, and it is something I viewed very differently back in 2013. All of my fuelling was done on the bike, and whilst that might be time efficient, there’s always a limit to how much you can carry with you on a road bike. Even though I bought a much bigger bag for my new bike, that soon gets filled with tools, spares, clothing and a lock, meaning that how much food and drink I can carry is still limited.

So today I decided to stop roughly halfway through my ride at the Draycote Water cafe. I probably had enough food and drink to get me home, but I stopped anyway partly because it was a nice day to take a few photos, but also because if I ever want to do any really long rides, I am going to need to stop periodically along the way for food. Today was therefore a good opportunity to test things like how long to stop for, and whether I needed to ease myself back up to speed afterwards.

What excites me right now is where I might be able to get to on a ride. I did 61km today, and whilst that was an out and back route, as I live next to a train station a point to point route is very feasible too. With a bit of training and a bit more recovery from the Marathon, hopefully I can see some new places and discover lots of fun routes.

Relax, take it easy

Wasn’t Mika an odd choice for Eurovision host?

Anyway, this post isn’t about Eurovision. It is about the post- Marathon week and how different people spend it. I follow lots of runners on Strava and/or Instagram, and it does seem like a lot of them return to running very quickly following a Marathon. Some of them run 2 or 3 days after a Marathon, sometimes even the following day.

I would never directly question someone doing this. Everyone is different and without knowing their complete physical condition, their motivations for running and exactly how hard they went during the Marathon, it would be impossible to say from afar exactly how much rest they need. However, in many instances, I suspect the logic behind returning to running so quickly after a Marathon is flawed.

After my previous 22 Marathons, only once did I try to return to running inside 5 days, which was following the Barcelona Marathon, when I only allowed myself 2 rest days before returning. Less than 2 weeks later I started struggling with injury which would eventually necessitate 4 weeks of rest across the following couple of months, so that decision to return early was definitely flawed and counter-productive.

Obviously getting injured is not guaranteed. Indeed, had I understood the nature of the injury I had at the time, I could probably have adapted my training and been able to continue running, as has been the case in the instances where I’ve noticed the same symptoms since. But it is very much true that if you do not allow your body sufficient time to recover, particularly after a challenge as draining as a Marathon, your risk of injury increases.

Let’s however work on the assumption that those who return to running quickly after a Marathon understand this, have tested different options before and know from experience that they can return quickly without getting injured. Even if this is the case, I would still question the rationale for doing so.

If the logic for returning quickly is to dive straight into your next training block, then this misunderstands how progress is made during training. Though you need to train to make progress, the period when you get fitter is actually in the recovery after the session, not during the session itself. By rushing back to running, you will disrupt that recovery period, and for what? The session you do is unlikely to be a productive one. Even if you did manage to do a productive session or two, a couple of extra sessions are going to have no impact over the course of a proper block of training, and your aerobic fitness levels will stay at a high level for a long time after a Marathon even on minimal training. From a performance perspective, the cons definitely outweigh the pros.

The motivation for others may be different. It might be that they feel like they need to run for their mental health and those benefits outweigh the physical negatives of disrupting their recovery. Whilst I do understand this to some extent, and definitely do suffer from running envy whenever I am taking time off from running, you can get lots of the benefits of going for a run without actually running through other activities. On Monday for example I spent most of the day on boats on Windermere. I was outdoors enjoying the fresh air, exploring new places, going for a wander each time the boat docked. I was out for about 7 hours, but did less than 10,000 steps during that period so was still recovering.

Today I went for a very gentle swim. My peak heart rate was just 123bpm and average was 108bpm, the type of easy effort which is very difficult to do running because it is a load-bearing activity. Tomorrow I’m going for a bike ride, and whilst that will be a much longer activity than today’s swim, again I’ll be keeping things very easy from an effort perspective. These sessions satisfy that desire to be active but in a way which is more forgiving on the body, so if you really feel like you need to train, these are the types of options I would recommend.

I also think that a bit of time off after a Marathon is great for a sense of perspective. You can take time to digest what went well, what didn’t go well and figure out what challenge you want to do next. If you dive straight into your next block, you can quickly find that training becomes a bit monotonous, because you haven’t taken the necessary time to really figure out the why behind the training.

So, though I don’t say it, I’m always thinking it when I see someone dive straight back into running after a Marathon. Relax, take it easy.

Fuelling Windermere: What Went Right

A couple of days on from a Marathon can be a good time to look back on it. The body is hopefully aching a little less, the emotions around the event have most likely settled and you may well have returned to your normal routine, at least aside from the training. When it comes to the Windermere Marathon, I am looking back on it with a great deal of satisfaction. Things went about as well on the day as I could have hoped, at least in terms of the controllables given the weather was awful.

How I fuelled the Marathon was something I was particularly pleased with. This was something I had been paying a lot of attention to on my long runs in training this year, and that would definitely be the first tip I would give on this topic. Any opportunity you have to practice fuelling on a longer run, take it, even if you could probably get by on a run without a gel and/or a drink. That gives you opportunities to practice carrying your fuel, opening packets on the move (no easy task if it is cold and/or wet), consuming them on the move and most importantly digesting them on the move. There have been Marathons where taking on more fuel has been very difficult and left me feeling a bit ill, but I avoid that on Sunday because I had been training my body to get used to each of the products I use over the course of my training block.

In terms of products, there are lots of options but once you’ve found a combination, stick to that for the rest of the training block and race day. I use SiS gels and Lucozade Sport, due to how widely they are stocked as much as anything else. Wherever I am, I can probably find somewhere nearby that stocks these ranges if I find myself without either, which obviously isn’t the case for the internet-only products. You can switch up the flavours (something I would definitely recommend in terms of gels whenever you need to take more than one) in the knowledge that the textures will always be the same, which is the main reason why I wouldn’t recommend mixing brands.

Which brands you use should be influenced by which brands will be available on the route during the Marathon. In the Barcelona Marathon the brand of gels was one I had never tried before. I hated the consistency, and found myself with the option of either not taking another gel or forcing them down. I took the first option, which was one of the reasons I struggled so much over the final 10 miles.

If the brands aren’t ones you like, or the refreshment options are more limited (at Windermere there were no gels, and I have done Marathons where the official refreshments did not extend beyond water), you’ll need to find a way to carry your own. Some runners favour a backpack or belt, but my preferred option for a longer run or race is a pair of Ronhill shorts which have two gel pockets, plus a zip pocket which can accommodate another gel, a couple of small chew bars and my keys. The good thing about carrying your gels in your shorts is that it is an all-weather option. A backpack is fine when it is cool, but on a hot day it can be horrible. By contrast, the shorts work when it is hot, but when it is cold I can easily put a pair of tights underneath, so again I can practice what I plan to do on race day throughout the training block.

The other thing to practice in training is how frequently you take your gels and drinks. I settled on a sip of Lucozade every kilometre quite a long time ago and it has always worked for me, but gels has been something I’ve had to experiment a bit more with. I’ve struggled to stomach two gels per hour, but if I only take one per hour I find fatigue sets in quite early. Through practice, I’ve found that 40-50 minutes works best for me. If you have an idea about how quickly you can run a Marathon this will inform how many gels you’ll need to take, and if you find yourself slightly behind schedule as I did on Sunday, you can extend the gap between gels to the upper end of your range to ensure you don’t take on all of your fuel too early.

There is one thing I did on Sunday which I hadn’t practiced in training, and that was taping an additional gel onto my bottle of Lucozade. None of my training runs were long enough to demand a fourth gel, and whilst I should have tried experimenting with the different options like pinning a gel to my clothing in training, I always went for the available pockets instead. However, I had seen gels taped to bottles in cycling, and thought it was a relatively low risk thing to experiment with during the Marathon. The worst case scenario was either the gel falling and getting trampled, or it taking a long time to remove the tape and get to the gel. I avoided both of those by using lots of tape but folding over a Monica Geller quick pull tab, and despite the rain all went well.

On race day, fuelling, pacing and mindset are the main variables you can control, and they are all linked. If you are well fuelled, it will be easier to sustain your pacing, and it will also be easier to stay positive and make good decisions. On Sunday I couldn’t control the rain, couldn’t do anything about the hills, and also couldn’t go back and make up for the sessions I had missed during the final four weeks of training. But I could ensure I fuelled well, which in turn allowed me to adapt my pacing strategy mid-run, which gave me the reassurance that I had enough in the tank to run through to the finish.

A runner no more

Yesterday was the last day that I thought of myself as a runner. The aftermath of a Marathon can lead to some snap judgements at times, like how immediately after setting my current PB in my second Marathon I said I was going to concentrate on Half Marathons thereafter. But this time is different, because I have been planning this for several weeks.

The statement is however deliberately misleading, because I’m definitely not giving up running. Indeed, I have a 10k and Half Marathon next month, as well as the Yorkshire Marathon later this year, so I will be doing plenty of running. So what has actually changed?

It is a change of mindset and a change in how I train. The past four weeks have been incredibly frustrating due to my hip flexor injury. On several occasions, I have set out on a run only to have to abort the session within one mile as the pain was too much to run through. I’ve generally managed to do some strength work instead, but those sessions don’t excite me and particularly when the weather has been nice, it feels like a missed opportunity not getting outside.

The biggest part of the frustration is that it isn’t as if I broke my leg or any other serious injury. It was a fairly minor injury that I could run on if I really wanted to, albeit that would involve enduring a lot of pain. Yet there were plenty of other activities I could do completely pain-free, like cycling.

Had I been a little more flexible in my mindset and my planning, I could have been cycling on many of those evenings when I was getting frustrated by having to abort my runs. That might potentially have gotten me to the start line of the Marathon in a better place in terms of my stamina and strength, albeit whether my hip flexor would still have been okay is something I’ll never know. But what I do definitely know is that I would have had a lot more fun getting outside on my bike and doing something whenever I could.

A lot of this was down to my mindset. I’ve thought of myself as a runner to the point of excluding all other activities unless I can justify them as cross-training. Which is a bit ridiculous when I think back to setting my Marathon PB back in 2016, which came off the back of a full Handball season and was already into indoor nets ahead of the Cricket season. I even found time for the occasional round of golf, and did various other sports with work on an occasional basis too. Running was the sport I did more than anything else, but if I thought a different sport offered the opportunity to have fun, I didn’t focus on the potential risks that involved. I just looked at the positives.

That’s the mindset I want to return to. Doing other sports might potentially make me a better runner, but the added variety within my week will certainly keep things fresh and hopefully more fun. So, I’m not thinking of myself as a runner anymore. Instead, I’m thinking of myself as an amateur sportsman.

The Windermere Marathon 2022

There are running events where the veterans category starts at 35. If you look at the ages of some of the elite athletes, this seems a little early to me – Eliud Kipchoge is still the leading Marathon runner in the world and is currently 37, and has stated that he wants to carry on until at least Paris 2024. And given I turned 35 in January, veteran status is not one I am ready to embrace yet, even though today I felt like I ran like a veteran.

The irony of the last four weeks is that I built my entire Winter and Spring around this event, turning down the opportunity to do events like the Shakespeare Marathon and Wings for Life purely because I was determined to make amends for 2018, when I carried an injury into the event which I had to manage from the start and ultimately forced me to exclusively walk the last 3 or 4 miles. It was the only time I’ve been injured going into a Marathon, leaving feeling like I had unfinished business with the event. Then four weeks ago, I started struggling with my hip flexor and whilst I’ve been able to do a bit of cross training, I’ve only been able to do 10 mostly painful runs, when normally I would have been planning to do about 20.

In 2018 I didn’t at least have the benefit of some nice weather, but wasn’t so lucky this time around. The temperature was actually pretty decent for distance running, but it rained throughout which not only made the experience less pleasant, the clouds also obscured a few of the stunning views. Before the start I could barely see the water from the finish line, despite the fact it is only a few hundred metres away.

I had told myself to stay positive once I arrived in the Lake District, not to worry about what has happened and just to enjoy the experience, but the combination of the last four weeks and the weather left me feeling a bit concerned as the drumming crew (brigade? troupe?) led us to the start. However, when I set off, there was no pain in my hip flexor at all. This was a very good sign as the injury has been worst at the start of a run before generally easing slightly once I’m fully into my run. This meant that I was quickly optimistic that the run could at least be injury free, if not necessarily pain free.

I then had to settle into a rhythm. For the first hour I felt a like I was going a little too quickly. Not by much and it felt very much comfortable, but just quick enough to make the final hour feel very tough. I had no set aspirations in terms of a time, but had set myself the goal of running the whole way round. I’d set that goal when my training was going very well, and knew I had to take early action if I was to achieve it.

The longest and steepest climb on the route comes at around 11.5km, which was fortunate timing for me today. The hill naturally slowed me down, with my kilometre split almost 30 seconds slower than my previous kilometre, and I used that as the catalyst to pull back my pace. It was a slightly unusual feeling as I was suddenly being passed left, right and centre at a point in the race where I am normally progressing through the field, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t racing anyone. All I was trying to do was run the whole way, and if I eased back whilst I was still feeling relatively fresh, that would be more attainable.

This meant that I went through halfway in roughly the same time as 2018, though I knew that I had slowed dramatically during the second half on that occasion and there was no reason to think that the same would happen again today. By around 25km the relentless hills were starting to take their toll and my pace slowed a little, though not by a huge amount.

Indeed, I could tell that my pace wasn’t slowing too much because I was passing other runners far more frequently than I was being passed. There were a couple of runners who I regularly traded places with, but I could spot ahead of me who was adopting a run walk tactic and knew that I would overtake them the next time we went uphill.

One of the surprises of the run was how much of the course I remembered. Indeed, I remembered pretty much every spot where I had been forced to walk 4 years ago, as well as the point where I got very angry at myself for trying to run even though I knew that was a terrible idea. Each time I passed one of these points, I smiled to myself that this year was going better. Once I reached the final 5km, even though I knew there were still some tough climbs to come, I knew there was no way I was going to be forced to walk.

I also realised that I was comfortably inside 4 hours. Even though I find that barrier rather arbitrary, you’d still rather finish 5 minutes inside it that 5 minutes outside it, and that I was I did today.

Overall I think today could be my best Marathon in terms of getting the most out of myself on the day. Yes, I’ve run faster on quite a few occasions, but those were after less disrupted training blocks and on much flatter courses. I’m not sure exactly how much time the hills add, but at 513 metres of elevation gain there is more than four times as much climbing as there was in the Shakespeare Marathon where I set my PB, so that has got to be worth quite a bit.

Whether I will ever find out remains to be seen. It is a lovely course and a fantastic excuse to book a few days in the Lake District, but the only problem is the timing. It makes it difficult to take part in any of the big April Marathons, and it also makes it difficult to take part in any of the longer trail events in June which is something I’m definitely keen to experience. And I feel like I’ve made my peace with the event now. I’ve managed to put in a good run at the second time of asking, and so the motivation to return for a third time ironically is reduced.

Though never say never.

The Windermere Marathon: One Week To Go

The long run the weekend before a Marathon is a pretty unimportant long run from a physical perspective, but it can be a very important run psychologically. The weekend before I set my current PB, I had a fantastic run. It was fun and I felt really good, able to sustain a fast pace with relative ease. Most runners go into their second Marathon expecting to improve, but that run confirmed to me that I could be a little more ambitious than the 3 minute improvement which would see me go under 3 hours 30, and ultimately I was able to run 3:16.

Today’s run didn’t feel like that run back in 2016. I never expected it to. At one stage I wasn’t even sure whether there was going to be a run today. My only proper midweek run was 6.8km on Thursday, and whilst my hip flexor had felt okay for most of that run, it was quite sore afterwards and the following day. It was sore at the start of today’s run, and I thought about aborting the run on several occasions. However, each time I kept going, telling myself that if it was still sore when I reached the next waypoint on my route I could reassess, and by the time I was 15 minutes into the run it had mostly loosened off, at least to the extent that I could think about other things.

One of those things was how and when to train over this next week. My body is pretty fresh right now, something which was confirmed on yesterday’s bike ride where I felt really strong despite it being only my third ride of the year. I could probably therefore train a little harder than I would normally do in the final week before a Marathon and still arrive feeling fresh, but for the fact that the more rest I can give my hip flexor, the less likely it is to cause irritation during the Marathon. My plan right now is a bike ride on Tuesday and then my final run Thursday, though I’ll need to review how I’m feeling on a daily basis. I certainly don’t plan on doing any more than that though, even if I’m feeling good.

One of the challenges of most injuries is your body trying to compensate for the injury and adjusting your gait accordingly. Particularly early on in today’s run, my gait felt really unnatural and yet it was difficult to adjust. Even once the discomfort reduced, it was easily another 30 minutes before I felt like I had found my rhythm. After the run there were a few minor aches in different areas, no doubt a consequence of the adjusted gait initially, and that’s another reason why I don’t want to do too much running this week.

I ran today’s run at the pace I’d originally planned to run the first hour of the Marathon at, with the goal of slowly increasing that pace throughout the rest of the Marathon. Even though I was able to sustain that pace and didn’t feel like I had to stop when I finished my run, it’s clear I need to readjust my plans in terms of pacing. I had to work a bit harder than I wanted today, and whilst that’s no bad thing in terms of this session, I certainly wouldn’t want to be going into the second hour of a Marathon feeling like I had worked that hard. If I reduce my pace and effort levels just slightly, then hopefully running throughout the Marathon can be achievable, and I can always think about raising the pace later if I’m feeling better than I did today. What I can’t do is undo a start which is too fast for me to sustain.

Today’s run then was decidedly mixed. What I want to try to remember over the next week is that I am at least in a much better place than I was the last time I ran Windermere, where my ‘long run’ the weekend before was a parkrun. And Windermere isn’t even remotely close to my slowest Marathon, so whilst next week may well not be what I was hoping for a few weeks and, there is no reason to suspect it will be a disaster either.

Relieving the tension

I can’t remember feeling as much pressure going into a training run as I felt today. The last few weeks have been a bit of a battle, firstly to admit that there was anything wrong with me physically, and then once I had accepted that, to work out what was wrong and how to put it right. I went to the physio on Wednesday, probably a week later than I should have done, but this was definitely a case of better late than never. I was reassured that the issue with my hip flexor wasn’t anything major and was given some exercises to help strengthen the muscles surrounding that area, but the question of when I would be able to run pain-free was still lingering.

Having felt mild discomfort throughout Tuesday’s run, I then took the rest of the week off, so my first opportunity to test how I felt was yesterday. That run mostly went well, with only minor discomfort initially which eased after about 10 minutes and didn’t return, though my new shoes still didn’t feel like they were worn in, which was a concern because my only alternative shoes are a little old now and not ideal for running a Marathon either. Therefore I took a bit of a gamble today and wore the new shoes again, in the hope that I could at least solve that issue before Windermere in a fortnight.

All of the above meant that today was a perfect opportunity to try out a small tip from the latest issue of Runner’s World. There’s almost always one thing that I’ll incorporate after every issue, whether that is a training session, a training plan or a way to tweak my running form, and when I read “Benzie advises holding my thumb and forefingers together…the contact between the thumb and forefinger conducts any tension flowing in the body,” it immediately made sense to me and was something I wanted to try.

It sounded like such a simple idea. There were other suggestions in the same column which sounded equally useful, but would require adjusting my form over a much longer period, and trying to make such changes so close to a Marathon would not be sensible. This change though was something I could implement immediately. If it worked, I could carry on doing it. If it didn’t work, I wasn’t putting myself at risk of injury by trying and so there really wasn’t anything to lose.

The biggest challenge was reminding myself to do it. On my long runs I generally carry a bottle in one hand, with my other hand loosely closed. When things start to get difficult, I tend to tighten both hands, and though I started out well with this new technique today, I tripped over in the woods about 35 minutes into the run. Thankfully the landing was soft, but I immediately reverted to my old habits after resuming my run.

It was only as I approached the final 5km of my 23km route that I remembered what I had initially been attempting, and the impact I felt was huge. Small tensions within the body can build up into something significant over a long run, and that is really counter-productive. Once I placed my thumb and forefinger together, I noticed the grip on my bottle loosening. My shoulders relaxed, my face relaxed, everything felt lighter. It almost felt like I’d been running with a backpack for the first 90 minutes of the run which I then dispensed with, such was the lightness I felt.

Right now, the run feels like a success. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow and how I feel on my next run on Tuesday, but my hip was pain-free and my shoes felt a lot more comfortable by the end of the run too. I did feel a bit sluggish at times, and my speed and power have probably dipped a little following two weeks with not much running, but the stamina was good. I didn’t go into zone 5 at all, so although I might need to temper any thoughts I had a few weeks ago in terms of time, if I run sensibly I should hopefully still be able to produce a good performance in Windermere.

Crossing Over

My blunder with the May Day 10k meant that I had a gap in my schedule this morning, and my first thought was to go for a run. Whilst it wasn’t as painful as Saturday, I could still feel a slight pain in my groin, and therefore decided to immediately abort the run and go out on my bike instead. There are quite a few bike routes I want to try and today went for the least exciting but most useful option, the route I will use if I commute to our new office by bike.

I tried to take the first half of the ride very easy, the type of effort I should be able to sustain pretty much any day. There aren’t any particularly big hills which helps, and it took me just over 35 minutes to get to the office, so once I factor in a shower and getting changed, I now know that leaving an hour before I intend to start work should be plenty of time. On the way back I took a short detour via Ryton Pools, and if I ever wanted to turn the ride home into a more substantial training ride, there are plenty of options away from the busy roads.

Being out on the bike on relatively quiet roads gives you time to think, and the part of me which thinks of myself as a runner was occasionally worried by the fact that I haven’t done a proper run since last Thursday, especially as it is now less than three weeks until my next Marathon. However, I had to remind myself that this isn’t a repeat of self-isolation in any way. I swam on Friday, did plenty of walking on Saturday and have done more than 2 and a half hours of cycling across Sunday and Monday. There’s no reason to suspect that my fitness will have dropped at all by the time I do my next run, and even if I have to continue cross-training only for a few more days, that shouldn’t hurt my Marathon in any noticeable way.

It was a minor panic over nothing, but I know why I panicked. I’ve done 22 Marathons, and every single time I’ve excluded pretty much every activity other than running, walking and yoga from my schedule during the final month of preparations. I know what to do and what not to do in terms of each of those activities, but by adding extra sports into the mix, that equation becomes more complex. Now really isn’t the best time to be making things more complex, but if the question is whether running through pain or cycling pain-free is the better option, the answer is obvious.

If my next run goes well then I might not cycle again until after the Marathon, but once I have completed the Marathon it won’t be long until I’m spending more time cycling each week than I am running, given I’m intending to cycle to work 2-3 times per week. That could turn out to be a significant moment, as although I love running and don’t intend to replace it as my number 1 sport, I have allowed myself to think that I cannot achieve my running goals unless everything revolves around running, which really isn’t the case. Playing other sports not only won’t hurt my running, they could help it. For example, there is a fatburning sweet spot which I find really hard to hit on a run as the load-bearing nature of the activity make it relatively intensive. However on a swim, cycle or even a hike, that sweet spot is much easier to find.

And who knows, maybe once I’ve tried a triathlon this Summer, I will discover that was my true calling all along?