Day 50 – There May Be Trouble Ahead

Day 49 was a rest day, although rest is something of a fluid term as it involved seven and a half miles of walking kids to and from school and a trip to the supermarkets. I ended the day perhaps more tired than had I just done an easy six in the morning.

Tuesday and the plan had an easy six in the morning followed by eleven at marathon pace in the evening. The wife is totally snowed with work at the moment so I decided to switch, doing the marathon paced run when the baby was napping and then doing the six later in the evening once I’d put the kids to bed.

The morning walk to and from school was a lethargic affair – not pained, just slow. I had to work myself up to get out and running especially as it was to be at a fair pace from the off. At least the skies were blue outside, although the stiff breeze that has numbed the face for the past few days was a persistent feature of the day.

The opening miles of the run were routine enough; I was swift out of the box and pain free, knocking out the first mile in a sprightly 6:24 – quicker than I plan to run the opening mile come marathon day. The second mile was harder, but faster, as it was mostly into a head wind, and the third mile was mostly uphill and into a headwind, which made it the slowest of the run. I had a warning sign with a twinge in the right hamstring approaching four miles, the pain subsided soon enough so I carried on. Miles five and six were spot on marathon pace despite being partly uphill.

After a pit stop at the sports centre I continued sprightly and keen to knock out the final few miles. Things though got tough on the way to Barrowby and leaving the village the twinge in the right hamstring and in the inner thigh increased in intensity. It didn’t slow me too much in the final couple of miles, partly as they were mostly downhill, but they knocked the impetus out of the run – it felt as if something could go at any moment.

I made it home without too much distress; after a stretch I went to play with the massage tools – looking for signs of trouble. There was plenty to be found: from the hip to the knee, quadricep and hamstring – there were sore points everywhere. I massaged for around twenty minutes, then after lunch walked to collect my daughter from school. The hamstring ached for much of the walk near the knee. There and then I abandoned any notion of running again in the evening – hoping that an evening of massage and sleep can alleviate the symptoms.

This pain first struck last Tuesday at the mile reps – something on the right hand side doesn’t like running at pace. Hopefully I can find the problem soon before Project Sub 2:45 begins to potentially derail.