Package from Amazon

I'm a bit of a book fiend and read all the time, but I've been particularly excited about my most recent purchase, "Once a Runner" by John L Parker.  By all accounts it's a bit of a legendary running book, and after enjoying "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall so much I wanted to read another one.

So, Once a Runner arrived last night and I started reading it this morning...have only got a short way into it but loving it so far.  I don't think it'll be as important to me as Born to Run, which I've still got on my bedside table, but I find reading books about running incredibly motivational, and really recommend it :)

Today will be the day...again

Well this healthy eating, food for fuel idea that I had really isn't going well.  I've put on another four lbs in the last two and a half weeks.  It is amazing just how good I am at putting on weight :( 


I can use all the excuses in the world about being injured and not being able to run, but nothing changes the fact that I binge, and eat too much food that has too high a fat content.  I just don't seem to be able to get started....and stick to...this weight loss/healthy eating element of my running lifestyle, although I know it will make a really positive difference to my pace and how I feel about myself.  I keep promising myself that today will be the day, this week will be the week...even though it doesn't seem to happen...but I wont give up, and today, I will try again to eat normally.  

Daily Mile = awesome

I've discovered Daily Mile which really does seem like a fantastic tool for recording my marathon training and keeping my running logs up to date - it even automatically links to my Garmin watch, and below is an example of one of their blogger widgets.

If you've not seen it yet, well worth checking it out.  It's everything I need in one place, and gives me a tool to track my races, daily, weekly, monthly and annual training, the map of my routes and even more, all with a really cool and intuitive interface.  Perfect :)

I can call myself a runner again

I have not been a good patient.  Being injured and unable to run for a couple of weeks has been awful - I didn't realise how much it would affect me, upset me, and make me question the persona that I have now created for myself as "a runner".  I know that everyone gets injured, and just because I've not been running it doesn't change who I am, but in an illogical way, I felt like it was just me alone sitting on a sofa RICEing my leg, while my training plan slipped though my fingers - I stopped blogging, ignored twitter, couldn't bear to read my Runners World and no doubt have put on half a stone (although I wouldn't actually know as I'm still a bit scared to jump on the scales again) with all the junk food I was eating.

But now my leg is better! :D

It's taken a few days of being without pain to feel like I'm mended but this morning I went for my first run since injuring my Achilles, and it was fantastic.

The runner's high I think they call it...although I'm sure I wasn't going fast enough to really achieve that as I took it very easily...but whatever it was, I felt like me again.  I'm back on track, and can't wait to pull my trainers again and get back out there for the next training run.

My rookie mistake needs proper recovery time

Due to my injured leg, I spent pretty much the whole weekend sat on the sofa.  I was getting very bored & frustrated by Sunday afternoon, so decided that as the important thing about the long run of the week is getting used to being on your feet for a few hours, I'd try and achieve something, and although I couldn't run, I'd go for a 3hr walk.  It turns out I'm a bit of an idiot.
I got about 1.5miles into this walk, when the pain in my leg became nearly as bad as when I was running....so I turned round and hobbled home :(

After doing a bit more online research, I've self-diagnosed my injury as Achilles Tendonitis.  It's my own fault - after doing so little after my half marathon on 5th December, I launched myself into lots of running come January, and have made the rookie mistake of increasing my mileage too quickly.  I thought that as I've been running a fair bit all year, it'd be fine...but clearly it wasn't, and then I ignored a niggling Achilles problem and carried on running, and now I'm limping when I walk and in pretty much constant pain.  I should count myself lucky that it's not more serious - an Achilles rupture could have seen me out of action for months!

I'm really concerned though about not being able to run and getting behind on my training plan. It can take a good couple of weeks to properly recover from this, and at the moment, it's just getting worse - although I appreciate that my walking stunt on Sunday didn't help.  I've got my next half marathon in 6 weeks and had been really hoping to go for a PB...never mind trying to get my PB in the marathon in April which is my most important goal at the moment.

However, I'm just going to have to accept that if I don't rest properly now, and push my training back a couple of weeks, it might stop me distance running completely....for ever.... If I let myself recover, maybe I'll not be able to run the next few races, but I will be able to run in six months time, which has to be much more important!