Rehabilitation

I had a great week this week, lacking nothing but my beloved running. I took the opportunity to rest as much as I could, catch up with people and stay off of my feet and knee as much as possible. I saw the physio twice in the week and heeded the advice I was given, don't run but the overall prognosis was way WAY more positive than I was even optimistically hoping for.

On the massage table yesterday my shin splints felt better, my feet, whilst still sore when I apply pressure, are causing no problems when I walk around but my knees were both pretty sore. I have iced, stretched elevated all week long and this evening I felt strong enough to spend 30 minutes on my feet, about 20 minutes running and 10 walking.

This week I will ease back in slowly with cross training, swimming and some very light experimental running. I know I won't be able to get over the disaster that was Rocky Raccoon until I cross the finish line at Umstead 100 in 7 weeks time so I have decided just to get on with it and dive back into focusing on that from now until then. As mentioned in a previous post I do need to tell myself that out of 6 more goal races this year, this one is the 6th most important but it is essential I have a good race there to get my year back on track before the big races kick in beginning with Comrades in late May. As such if my training goes to plan in the next week or so of gradual build up then I will drop back in to a couple of longer runs the week after and finish off running the majority of the course/ planning the second 100 miler in the Centurion series which I'll be putting on in March 2012. After that I have some pretty cool weekends planned with races on some of my favourite trails and some shorter local ones which will give me a chance to push up my leg speed. All in all if things go to plan I am aiming to fit in a few 50ks and a couple of marathons in the 6 weeks leading up to April 2nd. If I stay positive and sensible the physio believes that it should be possible.

I haven't really said much to anyone up to this point about my DNF at RR100 other than reflecting on it in the race report on this blog. The fact is my opinions on DNFs are a little controversial and hence probably better kept to myself. I received a lot of good wishes from friends, family and particularly runners after Rocky, but the underlying fact is I failed to finish a race and in my book that's not really acceptable unless you literally have to be dragged off of the course. Undoubtedly my decision to drop was the right one but given that hypothetically, although traveling excruciatingly slowly, I 'could' have finished with 15 hours left on the clock, I'm very far from delighted with the outcome. Of course I went to run a PB/ to see how fast I could run 100 miles and not just to finish at any cost given that I'd done that there once before but that doesn't make the decision any less 'right'. It's an area I don't really want to get in to as I say as frankly it's done and dusted and it affects no-one but myself. If you're interested in the debate over DNF-ing have a look at this post from AJW which kicked up a bit of a storm (if you're a real geek read through the comments which is where this subject gets interesting) http://ajwsblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/dnfs.html