A step up in pace

Half marathon training started this week. It's certainly a step up in pace and distance for me compared to the past couple of months. You'd think that with all the marathon training last year it would be pretty easy. This is not the case. I've lost a lot of fitness over the last few months. Hopefully I can get it back by the time of the race in May.

What I've realised is that I do not like running to time. I think it's because I cannot alter the time but when I run against distance my fate is my own. So with this in mind I've altered the training plan from time based to distance based. Much better.

I've had no recurrence of my ankle injury. It was certainly not due to my running shoes. I'll just have to keep my eye on it.

This morning I ran a set of six intervals of 600m each. It was tough but I got through it. The pace I had to run was actually slower than my best 10km pace although it felt a lot tougher. Such is the loss of my fitness at the moment. Next week I will be running the same session so it will give me something to compare against.

A rest day tomorrow and then a 4 mile tempo run on Thursday, which will be another tough test. Looking forward to it though.

*sniff* *cough* *sneeze*

It's been two weeks since my last post. This is because I was off sick for three days and missed a couple of runs. A slight chest infection and a touch of the man-flu laid me up. I trusted in the adage that if the cold is below the neck then it's best not to run.

I'm now in my final week of recovery runs. Yesterday I ran for thirty minutes and at the end my ankle started complaining! Disaster I thought. Will I never by rid of this turbulent tendon? This morning I decided to risk my scheduled forty minute run that included six 100m sprints. I came through with flying colours. What's the next step? Well tomorrow is a rest day then I have a thirty five minute run on Thursday, twenty of which is at a tempo pace. I will be wearing the same running shoes that I wore yesterday and if I start feeling pain again then it may well be that it's the running shoes to blame. It's a scientific process of elimination, so we'll see what happens.

My half marathon training is due to start on Monday so I will bring forward my Sunday run (fifty five minutes) to the Saturday so I get a rest day before the schedule starts. Providing my ankle doesn't explode.

Stay on target

Three weeks until I start half marathon training.

My run this morning was 35 minutes. Pretty much 4 miles. It's the longest distance I've run for about two months and it felt like it.

Still no issues with my calf and ankle so all is well at the moment. So much so that I've chosen my training plan for the Chester half. I'm going to use the Lucozade running plan for sub 1:35. It will be a stretch since I am not up to full fitness and 1:35 would be a new pb for me so it may be a case of changing plans if I find it too tough to start with. Until then I'm sticking with it. This weekend I'll be up to 40 minutes, then it's 45 minutes the weekend after and 55 minutes the weekend after that.

Say one thing, do another

My plan was to not accelerate the schedule. That was the plan I had agreed with myself.

I should never listen to myself. I'm such a liar!

I accelerated the schedule so that I'm now running 5 days a week instead of 3. So far everything is going well. This morning I ran 25 minutes non-stop. My heart rate went quite high but I suppose that's to be expected since I haven't run for any length of time for a couple of months. My main concern is my calf and ankle and both of those came through with flying colours. For the next week I'm running 25 minutes and 30 minutes alternatively. After that it's a bit of interval training and strides. That will be the real test.

Feeling fine

I've been following the return to running schedule and so far no problems. This morning the intervals rose to 2 minutes walking 10 minutes running repeated 2 more times. My tendon and my calf are holding up well, no sign of any pain or even aching. The temptation would be to accelerate the schedule but at the moment I am happy to keep with the plan. Maybe once I'm running without intervals and there's still no pain then I'll judge if it's safe to increase the frequency of runs but that's a week or two away yet.

I'm wearing long socks that help the circulation around the calf area. I was also wearing a tubular calf grip but have now dispensed this. It can be too easy to fall back on something like that as a psychological crutch.

It's four weeks until training starts for the Chester half marathon and it can't come soon enough; a) because I love a training plan and b) because if I am able to start training it means that my injury is no more. Double reason to celebrate.

By this time next week I will have run my last run/walk interval session. Let's hope that for this year at least it really will be my last.

On the road again

I went for a four mile run on Sunday to test out my calf. My right leg started to ache a little after a mile. By the end of four miles it still ached but not to the point that I had to or wanted to stop.

Post run it carried on aching so maybe four miles was too ambitious at the moment.

Searching on the internet I found a seven week programme for returning to running after injury. It involves a lot of walk breaks which might dent the ego a bit but if it means I get back up to training speed by the end of the programme then I can live with that.

On Wednesday I went for my first recovery run. 10 minutes walking, 5 running, 5 walking and another 5 running. It's remarkable how tiring even a 5 minute run can feel at the moment. Tomorrow I have to walk 5 and run 5 three times. It's a far cry from an 11 mile midweek run. Those seem like a lifetime away. But at least it's getting outside and not being sat indoors feeling sorry for myself.

If all goes well I hope to be able to start the half marathon training in 6 weeks' time. I know the schedule is for 7 weeks but the first week of half marathon training is pretty much the same as the last week of the recovery schedule so they tie in quite nicely.

Pain, no gain

It's been a month since the last posting. So what's happened? Well, I tried changing my running style to no success. The midfoot running shoes still caused problems with my ankle as the distances went up. I got up to 5 miles before it hurt but any further and I was risking more damage.

So, I stopped right? Wrong!! I decided to change my style again and went back to my Vibram Five Fingers with the promise of efficient forefoot running. You know, the ones that have twice busted my calf. Surely if I took it easy I'd finally manage to lick this forefoot running thing.

Well I started at 20 minutes, increased by 5 minutes each week and finally got all the way to 35 minutes before my calf decided enough was enough. A tiny but intense pain in the calf at the end of a 35 minute run meant I had to give up the experiment.

No new running style. No Manchester marathon. I need to rest my leg to help it recover from the post tibial tendon and to make sure my calf doesn't explode. I never learn. I always think that I can find an alternative to beat the injury but in the end I just have to rest it out. I'll go out on Sunday for a trial and see how it goes.

If all is well I'm going to enter the Chester half marathon in mid May. The training schedule starts on the last week of February which gives me just over six weeks to heal and get up to some decent level of fitness.

I will update next week with hopefully good news.