Tags
diet, exercise, injury, london marathon, manchester marathon, marathon, marathon maniac, milton keynes marathon, recovery, Redway Runners, running, training, weight loss
After losing the majority of December to tendonitis in my left ankle, it was a great relief to see in the New Year with a short and easy run, starting at 11.30pm on New Year’s Eve and finishing just after 12.15am on New Year’s Day.
Personally, I can’t think of a better and more unique way to say goodbye to 2014 and hello to 2015, so to join in the run organised by Redway Runners was a great pleasure.
That enjoyment was further enhanced by actually completing the run, pain-free and seemingly recovered from said ankle injury.
Being injured over the festive season can either be seen as a disaster or perfect timing depending on your perspective.
On the one hand, and as someone who continues to indelibly link exercise with calorie consumption, there’s a lot of food to eat over the Christmas period. As much as it’s not a challenge, nobody likes turning down the things they like to eat, so with my enhanced training appetite and reduced activity, it should hardly be a surprise that I gained about half a stone from the start of December to the end.
On the flip side, after a solid year of fairly tough training – mostly six or seven days a week and increasingly more than once a day – there are definite benefits to be had by taking some time off and allowing your body to recuperate. The whole purpose of training is to break down the fibres in your body by stretching and exerting them, before allowing them to rebuild bigger and stronger, which can only be possible with sufficient rest and recovery.
So after effectively a month of no training, it’s been a delight to get back out on the redways this week and start putting together some easy runs. In the month I’ve had off, I can definitely feel a loss in fitness and the stats back this up: this week I’ve completed a 7-miler and a 5-miler, both at what would be an easy pace given my past performances, but with heart rates much higher than I’m used to.
Thanks to the confidence inspired by these early steps back to fitness, I’ve started thinking ahead to this year’s goals. After last year’s achievements, my main goal is to train towards a sub-3-hour marathon, with Greater Manchester being the target event on Sunday 19th April.
Starting the year with reduced fitness as a result of injury is not the ideal way to kick this off, but there’s nothing I can do about that – you have to play with the hand you are dealt and make the most of it.
With that in mind, I think it’s really important to maintain more than one goal. After Manchester, I’ve already confirmed a place in the 2015 London Marathon and Milton Keynes Marathon is then the following weekend – that’s three marathons in sixteen days, which is clearly a tidy effort and one that will require a lot of training and preparation.
However, there’s a sizable carrot at the end of that particular stick: Silver level Marathon Maniac status, which is something I’ve only recently learned about and seems like something I’d be pretty proud to place among my palmares.
On the surface, running marathons on consecutive weekends looks like a tough ask, but I’m looking at it a similar way to how we normally tackle training plans – every Sunday has a long run scheduled throughout the build-up, often with 20+ mile runs on consecutive weekends.
As the first race, Manchester, will be the only one given my full energy with the aim of achieving a personal best time, I’m planning on completing the following two races at a lower level and with a more relaxed attitude.
Hopefully that should allow me to complete all three and to enjoy the last two in particular – at London last year, it was hard to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the day as a result of hammering out a tough pace, so I’m really looking forward to taking my foot off the gas a touch and enjoying the day a bit more.
Looking closer to home, MK’s marathon was a great event in 2013 and I can’t wait to re-tread those steps and cross the line at stadiummk again. I would imagine I’ll be in pain and stiff as board as a result of the previous two weekends, but the potential satisfaction of completing the hat-trick should be enough motivation on the day.
I’ll try to remember that sentiment when I’m ascending Hospital Hill on the way to the Mile 25 board.