Listen Up

London Marathon Training
Week 9, Day 2

Sometimes it’s not meant to happen. Sometimes you just have to listen to your body. This was one of those times.

Tonight’s run was scheduled to be between 4-5 miles, but I decided to end it after just one. Not that the run itself was bad, I included the Toome Road/Carolhill Park in it which is pretty much a steady climb, and completed it without any real trouble which was good.

I ended it because I didn’t feel ‘right’. My main issue was with my left leg, specifically the upper leg/hip area.

My legs in general felt fine over the last couple of days, and it was only late this afternoon when I stood up that I detected a slight twinge but I put that down to nothing more serious than whatever angle I had been sitting.

However, as I was getting changed to go out it didn’t ease. But, I thought, surely my normal five minute warm-up walk would loosen it. I got the sense all it needed was to ‘click’ back into place.

Unfortunately, as I started my run, it didn’t really. I wanted to try to run through it, so I headed up the aforementioned Toome Road and, as I said, I managed it fairly comfortably.

Then, as I turned at the top and went back down again, I felt a stitch developing on my left side. Whether it was related to the niggle in my hip from a posture/running style perspective or not I don’t know but despite trying to implement some of the fixes I remembered (slow down, change my breathing and so on) it didn’t shift, so I decided to err on the side of caution and call it a night after just that single mile.

I’ve got bigger fish to fry and I’m a great believer in not flogging a dead horse … feel free to insert your own clichés here! For me, running is very much a pyschological thing. I know I have it in me to battle through adversity when I have to, but I also believe there’s no point punishing myself in a training run because of the knock on effect it could have.

Yes, it was disappointing but I’m not disappointed I went out, because it wasn’t a bad run as such. My body let me down this time, not my running ability.

I’ll see how I feel tomorrow and try to pick it up again. At least I got my legs turning a bit tonight, which is much better than simply doing nothing.

London Marathon Training (139.1 miles – 32 runs)
Week 1 – 12.2 miles (4 runs; average 3.05 miles per run)
Week 2 – 9.3 miles (2 runs; average 4.65 miles per run)
Week 3 – 17.7 miles (4 runs; average 4.4 miles per run)
Week 4 – 18.8 miles (4 runs; average 4.7 miles per run)
Week 5 – 14.9 miles (4 runs; average 3.7 miles per run)
Week 6 – 18.7 miles (4 runs; average 4.7 miles per run)
Week 7 – 20.3 miles (4 runs; average 5.1 miles per run)
Week 8 – 23.7 miles (4 runs; average 5.9 miles per run)
Week 9 – 3.5 miles (2 runs; average 1.75 miles per run)