26 Days to go

I'm going to try something new which might be quite boring but might help me keep focused a little bit during a difficult period in my training. Rocky Raccoon is 26 days away so I am going to try and diarise the run in on here each evening. 

After no running Thursday - Sunday with ITB issues I got back to it tonight. I've seen Mark my physio at Third Space Medicine in Soho 3 times in the past 6 days. He helped me back to strength after wrecking my achilles and acquiring shin splints in the run up to UTMB 2009 and again before Badwater in 2010. Each time he has got me back on my feet quicker than I thought really possible, helping me to help myself so that I don't need extended and expensive weeks of needless treatment. 

Last Wednesday I attempted to run the 4 miles to work and literally had to walk it 4/5ths of the way there. My ITB was swollen, rubbing hard on the outside of my knee. The well known condition 'runners knee'. When Mark started applying pressure to it on Wednesday night I was in agony, the kind which makes you sweat profusely right there on the table as you grit your teeth. He advised me against running Winter Tanners this weekend which I duly did and to stay off my feet as much as possible, ice, stretch repeat. 

Tonight I went back for round 3 and the pain had all but subsided. He advised me to run in tomorrow and to get back to longer runs tomorrow night, but I am impatient and as much as I tolerated stepping away from training for 4 days, pain free meant I felt like giving it a go. 

I managed 10 miles in a little over 1hr20. For 6 miles I was fine but on the back straight of Hyde Park down the hill on the trail I started to get niggling pain so each mile I stopped and stretched it out before continuing on gingerly. I am going to have to be really careful not to do myself lasting damage, whilst getting in enough training. What is supposed to be a 100 mile week culminating in the Country To Capital 45 miler on Saturday will have to be taken each day as it comes. I still plan on toeing the line on Saturday morning albeit it is purely a training exercise for RR100. 

The biggest problem with being injured is that you lose confidence. Last weekend I was running with total control and a good amount of pace. Tonight I led the whole way with my right leg, trying to protect the bad knee. I need to balance out my stride and spread the load otherwise I'll damage something on the right hand side and risk making the left too weak to sustain the pace. 

Anyway I'll try again tomorrow morning and again tomorrow night and see how it goes.