I might have hoped that my knee affliction was something that a couple of hours of physio and some rest would cure, but my hopes were dashed somewhat when the physio told me I actually had a hamstring strain, which was also affecting my popliteal tendon and my calf. Thinking back I can actually remember the moment the injury occurred, at about mile 25 of the Belfast Marathon, whewnI got some intensive massage, heat treatment and was told to take a complete break from training for 7 – 10 days, which would bring me up to the Monday after TriAthy (my race was on Saturday).
I wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis, nor was I distraught at beaing told to take a break like that. I’ve loved training every day, feeling and living like an athlete, but I’ve grown to hate being injured. I came into this year with the intention of training or racing every day, partially as a challenge to myself, to get stronger, fitter, increase my mental fortitude, but also so I could train and race as much as I could. Now I was just spending so much time injured, not training properly, missing races, but why, and for what. There are definitely a number of physical reasons why I keep getting injured, particularly on my left leg, related to a lack of suppleness, flexibility and general mobility in my leg and lower back muscles. There’s also a lack of long term, inherent muscular endurance, which I suppose is to be expected. I only started running less than a year and a half ago, after fifteen years or so of being a lazy git. Combine these with the fact that I haven’t been giving my body a break, and that whenever I resume full training I’m desperately trying to make up for lost time due to a stupidly cramped schedule, and you’re asking for trouble.
On the walk back to my car from the physio I came to accept the fact that I just can’t train every day. Not at this stage at least. In a futile attempt to keep it up I’ve been causing myself to miss out on so much of why it is that I started doing this in the first place, and that’s really a bit stupid. While in the past what I would have done at this point is just give up on everything altogether, say what’s the point in starting from scratch, what I’m going to do instead is reassess what I’ve been doing and what it is that I want to do. I’ve learnt a lot from the first six months of this year, about my training and about myself, but it’s time to take a slightly smarter approach to the next six months. There’s an awful lot that I want to do in these next six months, and I want to do it as best I can, not just stumbling along from one day to the next.
SlowSlowQuickQuickFast? 