2008 - June

[El Gordo]

Sorry, I've been a bit quiet in the last week or two.

Had some bad news, running wise, and couldn't quite bring myself to write about it. Went out for a 10 miler 2 Sundays ago, and it all went wrong. Knee started hurting badly again after about 4 miles, and I really struggled. Having to walk best part of 5 miles with an injury really didn't help.

Pain was still there a couple of days later so I went to see my (running) GP who's pretty sharp on these things.

The good news is that it's not terminal, but apparently I piled the miles up too quickly and put too much pressure on it. I think this was a polite way of saying "lose some weight before running more than 2 or 3 miles". Which pretty much was my plan, but the lard hasn't dropped off as quickly as expected this time, and I think the schedule outreached my physique and level of fitness too quickly.

Anyway, I've been told I shouldn't think about a September marathon, though the half should be in reach. End of October (Dublin?) remains a possibility but I was advised to rest up for a couple of weeks first, then take it slowly.

Very disappointing. And of course, with 10 days of no running, I'm even fatter than I was before.

So. I'm away for a couple of days, and will probably forget about this until I get back. Am hoping to do a long walk at the weekend which will tell me how the knee's getting on. At the moment it feels fine again though I've put no stress on it at all since the abortive run, so it could be deceptive.

Will get back to business as soon as...

Edit - meant to add that the advice was to do more non-running exercise like gym work, cycling and swimming, to take pressure off the knee a bit while still improving fitness. Makes sense. Should have done that earlier.