Catchy Monkey

Slowly, slowly and all that.

It's strange how a few weeks ago an 11 mile run in the morning would just be ticked off the list with hardly a thought and yet now I find going out for a 5 mile recovery run pretty exhausting. This is why getting back to "normal" after a marathon is a slow process.

The nice thing about this period of time post race is that none of my runs take that long. I don't have to get up before the dawn chorus, not even on my long run on a Sunday. This weekend will be a 9 mile slow run which will take me less than 1 hour 20 minutes. Barely time to listen to a decent-lengthed podcast.

I've been reading the Hansons Marathon Method book that arrived last week. At the moment I am three quarters of the way through it and I have been convinced that this will be the schedule I will follow for the Manchester marathon in April. I know it's a bit of an experiment since it goes against the grain of normal marathon training so in case it doesn't work I will fall back on the P+D 55-70 mile schedule (minus the double day runs) for Chester next October. We are barely out of this October and I already have to plan for next October! Such is the life of a marathon runner.

Hopefully this new schedule will work and I'll finally get under the magical 3:30 barrier. I will train for a 3:25 marathon (which my half marathon and 10k PBs suggest is achievable) but will run on the day at 3:30 pace to give myself some wiggle room. That's the plan anyway.

My new heart rate strap has arrived and is not causing me any issues at all. My Garmin heart rate monitor snapped onto it with no problems and it appears to be giving accurate readings. Most importantly it is not giving me a rash on my body like the old one. As I said in the previous blog I will be training for the next marathon by pace but it will be good to know that my heart rate isn't being pushed out of the zones it should be in. There's little worse than overtraining for a big race.

I'm roughly halfway through the recovery schedule, only another two and a half weeks of slow running. Then it's base training for three weeks which means more slow running but bigger distances and then marathon training starts. It sounds counter intuitive but I'm looking forward to the variety that marathon training gives, plus I love to follow a plan. Tell me how far and how often and I am a happy bunny.

Decision Time

Three weeks ago I completed the six week post marathon schedule culminating in an 11 mile run. So far, so good yes? Not exactly. Towards the end of the six weeks I started to get a pain on my inner right ankle. It would only start to appear after about 30 minutes of running. It got to the point that I decided to take a week off running to help it recover. When I started running again it still started hurting. Annoying. Like the best hypochondriac I turned to the internet for help.

Turns out I probably had post tibial tendon issues. It's an overuse injury which considering I had run two marathons this year is not unexpected although it is unwelcome. I bought new running shoes since I thought maybe the ones I had been using had come to the end of their usefulness. This didn't work and the pain came back again after 4 miles bang on cue.

I have in the house two pairs of Newton running shoes I bought a couple of years ago which promote a mid-foot running style that I have found so far prevents the post tibial tendon pain. It does take a period of transition though to be able to run in them. According to their website you start off running 20 minutes and then every other day you increase the run by 10 minutes, adjusting according to feel. I reckon if I do this up to an hour without issue I will be able to alter my running style safely and hopefully within about six weeks (the website says that it should take between two weeks and two months).

My main issue is that my Hanson training plan for the Manchester marathon starts on the 6th December. This Thursday. Even more annoying.

So my current plan is to scrap the Hanson method for this race, continue adjusting to the Newton shoes and then follow the P&D 12 week marathon plan. If this fails then I'll have to scrap the hope of running the Manchester marathon (saying goodbye to £42) and get ready for next year's Chester marathon.

So far I'm up to 30 minutes running in the Newtons. Hopefully by the next time I write I should be up to an hour.