Training Log Archive: Thumper

Easy shakeout in Tiergarten with Tom Bailey and Mike.

Woke up feeling headachy and head coldy. Calf survived the run feeling a little tight, but no issues around the achilles.

The hotel is at the 4k point of the race- gives me the opportunity to make an early call…so that is the plan.

My biggest concern is carbo loading and not running very far!!

Tried a little pick up, marathon pace feels a very tall order which surprised me as I've only had 3 days off.

Did a shakeout run with Mike and Tom to Tiergarten, feeling tired from an early start and pretty lethargic hopefully due to being quite dehydrated.

Still not sure what to do, but will keep weighing things up as the weekend progresses

Had a very aggressive massage last night, a last minute panic booking. Went to bed with it feeling sore but woke up with the achilles feeling a bit better- in fact no pain around the achilles which (re-assuringly) confirmed my hope that it wasn't a tendonitis, but a very tight calf pulling on the tendon.

My dilemma today was whether to continue resting and hope everything settles for sunday (six days completely off), not an option, no point.

Continue resting and call this the start of my break and just tuck into my winter training when things are settled (or go for Abbey Dash)

Or, try a run and if its ok take an easy jog each day in Berlin and toe the line.

As you can probably imagine, me being me, this has been an emotional few days. I desperately would like to know what shape this training block leaves me in, but I also really want to enjoy the XC season.

I certainly don't want to run on Sunday and jeopardise next season. At the same time I was just really, really looking forward to running a marathon, the gentle increase of pain leading to the big crescendo and painful last few miles, I'm hungry for it.

I decided to try a run and went to the lake to allow a quick escape if required. It went quite well, my left glut and hammy were stiff and I was aware of my calf but it didn't get worse- the pain could well be from the butchering last night.

In fact the biggest limiter was the cold I've picked up from Soph.

So… rather than go to Berlin all depressed I'm gonna go with the intent of running. I'm gonna do a light jog each day and hope it all comes together. I'm relieved really, as I could see myself just drinking a LOT of German beer all weekend and wasting precious money.

Psychologically I've conceded the race, so anything from here is a bonus. Even if the calf plays ball I feel a bit under the weather, so I now have low hopes. I'm not gonna put myself through any torture either, unless I get very far into the race at a good pace. Enjoying the winter is too important to me

C • Best of luck 2

Too painful to run and also have developed Sophie's cold. After much faffing last night its quite clear its my achilles, not really something I'd want to be taking risks with. Will see what tomorrow brings

Didn't see this all happening, knocked me for 6 a bit

C • Fingers crossed for you... 2

Failed run.

Headed to Grassmoor and planned to do 3 laps of the 1k loop before heading out on the trail if things felt well.

They didn't and I managed one lap. My achilles/peroneal/whatever it is, isn't happy. I could have kept going but I didn't want to make it worse.

I got a massage with Rich on Sunday, he wondered if it was a stress fracture. I don't think it is, but whatever it is couldn't have come at a worse time.

I don't really know how to move forward from here. I guess just take each day as it comes, I'm pretty gutted and sulky right now. I've always said that when my running "career" comes to a close, I just want to say I trained as hard as I could for something and got to see where that took me. I thought this race was going to be the one. Even if I ran shit I would have left Berlin happy.

What I don't want is to spend the next few days not running and then DNF or run shit and be able to blame this. There's no point cross training as what I really need is to keep in touch with the impact.

Serves me right for starting a sodding blog. Oh well.

Planned rest day.Calf so, so sore today- hopefully from the massage but I think this week is going to be a roller coaster.

Gonna be a challemge balancing healing of the calf with keeping running as I don't want to run the marathon without being happy with the impact...grrr

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Headed to Holmebrook after work for 15*1min of 1 min jog. Relaxed and at the same pace as my mile reps the other day.

Was anxious how my calf would feel as I was aware of it all day at work- it felt fine running- totally fine.

Frustratingly it tightenes up when I stopped.
I went for a Anne'saasage straight Fter and got a total pummelling as my gluts really are in a bad way- he also worked really hard on my calf

Session wise it felt a breeze