Wednesday 23 July 2008

Inconsistency

It hasn't been a good few weeks.....we've been hit by the trainers worst enemy, inconsistency.

Inconsistency in our training, in our diet, and (as you can tell from my multiple blog posting) inconsistency in our blogging!!! :(

Four weeks ago Jo's leg was giving her pain, hence her training suffered - which in turn also affected my training. We tend to spur each other on, even if we're not actually running together, hence when one of us is injured or sick then the other's training is also affected. Jo has better will power than I have - I find it easier to excuse myself from training sessions when I know Jo isn't able to run! :(

Then we had our one week holiday in Switzerland, which wasn't too bad as we managed to get in quite a bit of hiking, but in a month of very little running it too stands out as a barrier to our running.

Once we returned from holiday we threw ourselves into a couple of good runs, but maybe the poor diet from the week before was now affecting us. We were both pretty tired and Jo's leg was still hurting hence we skipped another couple of planned runs.

When the weekend came we were back into the flow, although Jo's leg was still an issue, which slowed us down...hence making me feel as if we were going backwards. I'm not sure I was fully aware of how much trouble Jo's leg was giving her at this point. On the Sunday (a week ago) I felt terrible, but still headed out on a run with Jo. After a few hundred metres it was obvious I shouldn't be running, my heart rate was around 150 while we were just warming up (normally around 120-130), so I headed home while Jo continued her run, alone.

So last week was also a write off. Jo with her bad leg and me with a high temperature. Jo booked into a sports massage and I got onto the antibiotics. Jo switched to doing pool sessions instead just to keep active whereas I did sod all.

Jo's sister (Gill) and her boyfriend (Andy) were down last weekend. They have finally returned to the UK after their 6 month adventure in South America (blog link on the right). It was great to see them, and we had a great weekend. We still managed to get runs in on Saturday and Sunday - I felt great, back to normal, but Jo's leg was an issue, hence we cut Sunday's run short.

Recently our diet has been pretty poor, ever since our holiday, but on Monday we made a commitment to get back on track. I'm glad to say that after just a couple of days of healthy eating I'm feeling much better....and no longer craving chocolate (the unfortunate side-effect of a week in Switzerland).

Jo's booked in to see the doctor on Thursday so she can get referred to a physiotherapist....it's a stupid system; insurance companies insist that you are referred by a doctor, as surely there is no way that you could possibly know that you need to see a physio (!) - £10 bet that the doctor spends 1 minute listening to Jo and then says "You need to see a physio"!! Jo did see her sports masseur again yesterday - and he's confident that Jo's leg problem stems from a problem with her hip (Jo did have hip pain a week or so before the leg problem manifested itself). We'll see if the physio agrees.

I'm back to running proper distances again - in the morning before work. Yesterday I ran to work via Limehouse and the Regents Canal (i.e. 11km route, instead of the direct 2km route to work). Today I ran past Limehouse, on to Canary Wharf, back to Limehouse and picked up the Regents Canal, carried on (to Islington) past the point where I turn off to work, and then back to work...a total of 17km (10.5 miles). I'm hoping to do the same again pretty much everyday until we have to taper....it's only a month to go (YIKES!).

I have changed our training plan - I have removed interval and intensive training sessions and put back the long slow runs. It's about getting back to being confident about running the distance rather than worrying about how fast we can be.

Hopefully Jo's leg/hip get sorted soon and we manage a couple of decent weekends of running - fingers crossed.

Now than we've only got a few weeks of training left I must confess that we're getting a little nervous! :(

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