Monday 31 May 2010

Another Week Under the Belt

So, as the blog title suggests I am still in one piece (*touches wood*). Since Portugal training has been virtually non-existent and this is very frustrating as I believe I was in pretty decent shape. The lastest in my long list of injuries started on the day of the Inter-Counties. I did a tempo early that morning with James Fairbourn and it went pretty well. At this point I was still on the comeback from tearing my calf. I had no immediate reaction until I stepped out of the car at the Inter-Counties and my Achilles just felt really tight and sore. However like the idiot I am, I still ran around all afternoon cheering people on and just hoping it was just a bit tight. Well it wasn’t and so I didn’t run for a while, but then was back bit part running when we left for Portugal. This trend continued in Portugal where I would run for 2-3days and then take a day or two off to try and let it settle again. This is obviously not clever, but I was out there to train and so this is what I set out to do. I thought I had turned the corner and managed a solid session with Pete Street, Nathan Bibby and Kris Bibby consisting of 1k, 800, 600, 4x400m.



However 2 days later the problem was back and worse than ever. The pain wasn’t directly on my Achilles and most the time didn’t really affect my Achilles. The pain was more to the base of my heel, just on the outside of my left Achilles. So anyway I didn’t run for about 4 weeks and then finally Cat Riley got to the bottom of the problem the first time I saw her. It turned out the Sub-Talor Joint in my foot was completely locked up, and so when my foot landed the force was not being distributed evenly therefore causing me problems. A couple of sessions loosening off my calf, soleus and peronial tendon, and mobilizing the joint in my foot got me back running. Since then I have come back very sensibly, running every other day for 10 days or so and then increasing the number and length of my runs. Saturday saw my first proper track session, done at home with Tom Cornthwaite. The weather was horrible but I was glad to be just back running on the track! I did 6x300m off 100m jog and I haven’t felt lactic like it for 3 years!! It really was a shock to the system! In the evening I watched the Grand Prix at Sportscity and it was great to see a lot of good friends running well. I can’t really mention everyone but want to mention Alex Hains’ run! He has missed 2 years of running since coming back from America, and in his first season back went out and ran  13.57!! Great job Hainsy!

The past week hasn’t been much fun apart from the return to proper running, as I have been revising hard. I went home Wednesday to Saturday to see my family and managed to get myself a job for the summer, which is very handy! Last night I went out for a couple of casual drinks with all the Loughborough boys, which was a welcome break from revision. However I am back on it today, and so will have to end today’s blog here. Until next time.....

Monday 24 May 2010

Back by popular demand/return from injury!






Many people were (rightly) saddened by the abrupt end to my blogging when I was out in Portugal. I can only apologise for this, and have no excuse other than sheer laziness.  I shall start by summing up the whole trip in a word; amazing! I can honestly say I had the time of my life for the 3 and a half weeks I was out there and would jump at the chance to go back. I met some really cool people out there and pretty much just had a ball. The training was also going fairly well until the last week when I didn’t run a step. This trend unfortunately continued for the best part of 3 weeks after my return, but I will go into that at a later date....

Highlights of the trip:

  • Death Day has to be up there... copious amounts of chocolate after being without it for a month was pretty dreamy!
  • BIG Saturday night out! If I say 7 very close mates all arrived home to the same house at completely different times, each with their own story to tell of the nights proceedings, then that should sum up how good a night it was! (and that’s not to mention some of us running at 6.30am pre-sleep!)
  • Gayhouse. Our house was given this label for some unknown reason, but unfortunately we failed to live up to our reputation!
  • Karaoke sessions in Rui’s Bar never went unloved.

  • Horrible tanning sessions.
  • And Mariani getting himself a girlfriend!!!


Since returning home, I have been pretty snowed under with 3 pieces of coursework to start and finish, and now my first exam tomorrow! Any excuse to get out of revision! I shall try and be more regular with my updates from now on, and will try and write later in the week detailing my latest in a long line of comebacks!

Until then xx





GayHouse