3 Marathons & a Silly 24 hour Race. Oh & an Injury Scare

So I raced my first race of the year, old niggles continued & new ones arouse, my visit to the Physio angered me, I mean what does he know, right ;o)? I was in a bad place, but lets start with the good.

THE GOOD:
My 1st Race of the year, The Ferriby 10. In fact my 1st ever 10 mile race. Travelling down with local friends  @Rustyw5, Ian, Ian & Bret then meeting up with Sally & Steve, Twitter friends @mikew30 & his fiance Sarah made it a great start to the race year. The Race itself was a fun affair with rolling hills, blustery winds & my race plan worked a treat. Running on my toes up hill (See THE BAD) & widening my stride downhill saw me constantly overtaking the other runners. Sadly all this was to no avail as on mile 8 I hit a massive wall, with No Energy & TOTALLY Out of Breath my lack of training had taken its toll. I limped towards the finish slowly being overtaken by all the guys I'd only recently "left for dead" on the downhills. The last climb was a killer, I felt like walking but I was caught up by an elderly gent who looked more like Tom Hanks in Castaway. "COME ON YOU CAN DO IT" he croaked at me, all the time catching me up! "COME ON LETS DO IT" he picked up his pace & tapped me on the back! BLOODY HELL!!! I gritted my teeth & "Sprinted" (the word Sprinted is used in its slowest form) up the last couple of meters up the hill, unknown to me the old guy had slowed back down but I'd already forgot about him as once I overtook a bloke who'd been cat & mousing with me over the 2nd half of the race, I'd engaged in a new race, I could have cried when he too found a sprint finish & kept by my side. Check the video below (1;57mins in. I'm in the red top, he's the one in the black top pushing me into the mud at the side of the road).... Oh & the "ROAR" out of shot is also me as I let out the last bit of energy I had to challenge him on the line. The ROAR was EPIC, you should have seen the *cheerleaders flock around me as I *gracefully flew over the line with this *powerful roar!

*St Johns
*fell
*painful

Anyway 1:57 min in, watch for me top of screen & the cheating black top loser ;o)

I finished in 1:14:22 by the way if anyone is interested & @Rustyw5 finished only 45 seconds behind me! Mike paced Sarah in with a fantastic time too, both Russ & Sarah have only just started running BTW. I felt good, recovered fast & my niggles were minor (sore) as I'd taped up well to minimise the damage.

THE BAD:

Rewind back to my last post, the niggles were still there so just before the Ferriby 10 I visited the physio, after a gait assessment (ran on a treadmill for you none runners) I was told what I already knew, I ran with a heel strike & over pronated (ran funny). This was causing stress on my achillies & the pain in my shin (my legs hurt, ok I'll stop you knew that right?), the answer was orthotics (special shoes, sorry). This I never wanted so after a chat with fellow Twitter friends who also run &/or run funny, I attempted to correct this myself before returning back for my 2nd appointment at the physio. So I starting to run on my toes instead of smashing my heel into the pavement each stride. The day after Ferriby my ankle & calves started hurting due to my body now using muscles to run that it normally would not use, I went back & told my Physio I never wanted special shoes so he kindly gave me info on how to correct it myself & I was on my way.

Did I feel like an "Ultra Runner"? No,
Did I feel confident about the London Marathon? No,
Did I feel confident about running int the Thunder Run 24 Hour Race? HELL NO!
Dam I struggled to imagine running for 24 hours never mind running 100 miles in that 24 hours!!!
So I booked an appointment with my Chiropractor to "Press the Reset Buttons" put me back together & more importantly ask if my challenges were now realistic.

THE GOOD:

See what I did there? I gave myself a motivational sandwich, The bitter taste of  bad news made more palatable by the couple of slabs of good news encasing it. Anyway, today I dragged myself to Bawtry Chiropractic & told them my story of destruction & demise, explaining I'd started training again for 3 marathons & a silly 24hr race but sadly was learning to run again from the beginning, I explained I was currently struggling to run 6 miles without cramping up or walking like "I'd ran a marathon" the next day. I was laid on the torturer slab & went through the dance of "Does this hurt? As my muscles are "manipulated" to their extreme & I grinded a couple of millimeters of my teeth enamel away." A sensation very similar to the Foam Roller after race day but with more pain, I say pain but its a nice pain, a pain that you know is making you better. To cut a long story short I need to keep doing heel lift exercisers to learn my feet to stop over pronating even when I run on my toes, I need to slowly build up my miles again so the 43 miles week I should be running this week will be a lot less than that. I need to put the TR24 to the back of my mind & concentrate on running VLM first, then Edinburgh, THEN the TR24. The Yorkshire Marathon will end this years challenge but at the moment that's top secret stuff & I will have to kill you if I told you so don't ask.

Am I an Ultra Runner? Well I'm still believe I'm mentally an Ultra Runner but need to work on being physically upto running another ultra.

Am I injured? NOOOOOOOO! I just need to accept I'm learning to run again, I've put my body through a lot over the last year & need to let it heal, I ran my 1st race 18th May 2011, I did very little again until Feb 2012 when running took over, fast forward a year to today & my a body has found its own way of running. I dragged it around the country & through its 1st Ultra with my head held high, sadly its the "wrong" way of running if I want to continue to run faster, further & stronger. I am very proud of what I have achieved to date but now its time to start from the beginning & build this sorry excuse of a runner back into an Ultra Runner & of course raise some cash for the kids at Rainbow Trust along the way.... Oh & have fun, I will continue to run as long as my body lets me & more importantly as long as I'm having fun while running.

Training has started. BRING ON LONDON!!!