Dress Rehersal

Tomorrow I'm plan to run a local half marathon in Blarney. Since I'm theoretically training for the Great North Run in 3 weeks time it may seem odd to run a 13.1mile race at this late stage in my preparation. I'm sure that not many training schedules would recommend it. In my defence there is method in my madness. Firstly, the race is 'local' and I believe that if I'm willing to travel to England for a race of the same distance I should at least make the effort to drive the 10miles to Blarney for a race. Secondly, as Pamela is pregnant with a due date at the end of October I may not be able to get a 'pass' for a free weekend in Newcastle at the start of October. So just to make sure that all my recent long runs aren't wasted I'm heading to Blarney in the morning.

Well that's the general plan anyway. I woke up this morning with a painful left calf as well as the 'usual' Achilles pains. I don't think that it's anything serious and probably as a result of a cramp I had during Thursdays fartlek. But, as a precaution, I've been icing it all day and in fact as I'm composing this post my leg is up with an ice pack strapped on. Pamela also suggested that I massage the muscle with her 'spiky ball' (like a tennis ball with spikes). Sounds painful I know, but apparently it's very effective in promoting muscle hearing and reducing inflammation and was recommended by her physio. Afterwards my calf felt like it did after my last trip to the physio so it may have done some good. We'll see...

One thing I've observed over the last year or so is that my legs are very prone to injury and these injuries usually occur during the immediate run up to a race. Maybe I'm pushing myself too hard? A work colleague of mine Grellan (also a runner) has said that I should run more 'recovery pace' runs. He may be right. I tend to think of anything over 7:30 pace as being 'recovery'. But maybe I should look at introducing a few 8min+ runs into my schedule. These injuries may be a sign of my muscles being more fragile now that I'm that little bit older (note emphasis on 'little') and possibly I should start to listen to my body....

So as you can probably guess, once again, my plan for the week has changed (I like to think of it as having 'evolved' or 'adapted to circumstances' but this is really just semantics. No run this morning although I don't think that I'd have benefited much from it anyway. In my youth I had a policy of not running the day before a race and I still think that there is logic to this.

Here's hoping that tomorrow my leg will feel OK and that I'll survive the run.... more to follow...

Friday

6.13miles easy/recovery - 46:28 (7:35min/mile) Avg bpm 155

Saturday

Rest

On another thought I wonder has anyone noticed the lack of coverage of the paraolympics this year. I remember that previous paraolympics were well covered on the TV but I haven't seen anything on this years event....