First Marathon after injury

Yipppeeee, I did it, ran my first marathon after injury and I survived. Leg appears to be OK will be icing it later, but so far so good. Didn;t run particularly fast (4:09) but I made it around and did collapse in a heap.

Onwards and upwards and on to the next race in Sheffield.

thanks

QUARTER OF THE WAY

Well against the odds I have just raced race number 10 so only 30 left to go.

Feeling really good now, with races under my belt and all of them in reasonable times (1:45 - 1:47), not quite at PB and will be making a concerted effort after my holidays to raise the bar and get back to full fitness.

thanks for all the support so far and don;t forget to pledge some money to this worth while cause.

Back Running, HOORAY

Well, I am back running again, today. I did a respectable 2 miles in 17:10 minutes so not too bad for the first time in 10 weeks.
Hoping this is the end of my troubles and I can get back to the serious business of running and getting on with challenge 40.
I am going to be running the Hyde Park 5K so if anyone is going to be there say hello.

Off the crutches

Hi All, I am now off the crutches and hopefully on the road to getting back to running again. I am hoping all has gone well and in 2 weeks I can start running again (if only a short distance).
I am going to be cross-training etc in the next couple of weeks and so will hopefully start getting fit before I hit the roads. If all goes well I am hoping to start racing again in the next couple of months.

It's a Stress Fracture

Well it is bad news all the way. After the pain in my lower left leg (inside) still had not completely gone after a week of doing nothing (including walking as I was in a car) I went to see a specialst.

The X-Ray showed nothing so not put off he sent me for an MRI on both my leg and my lower back. Well what a surprise the MRI showed I had a severe-critical stress facture in my lower leg. He immediatley put my leg in an aircast and gave me crutches. NO weight bearing for 6 weeks. The only savng grace is that I can swim so I am trying to keep my fitness.

This is definitely no the end of Challenge 40 its just a temporary hitch. I realise not the best of starts but I am determined to carry on and achieve this goal,

I will keep you posted on progress and my boredom levels ;-)

thanks

Going to get some rest

Well I did my first yoga class yesterday and it went really well. I enjoyed the relaxation part of the exercise and also the stretching was fantastic. My back is feeling better already, I am hoping that it will help with my leg.

I am also off on holiday next week so apart from some light swimming I am going to get a complete rest. If this does not work I give up.

It gets worst

Well I should have realised it was coming. As I really did not rest sufficiently (my own fault) my shin splints have caused my calf muscle in my left leg to give me pain, specifically when I go up on my toes.

After visiting my local sports injury guy, John Harris, my worst fears have been voiced. No running for at least 1-2 weeks and lots of icing.

In the meantime I have to attempt to keep my fitness level, so lots of swimming, cycling and cross-training. I am hoping it will not be too bad, but will be looking forward to running again.

This I hope is not going to affect Challenge 40, but its not a great start ;-)

Talking to Childline

Once I had decided on a name and what I wanted to achieve I thought I better talk to Childline. At first I sent them an email, explaining what I had in mind and if they would be interested.

A couple of days passed and went and I started to think it was all a bad idea. However, a few days after sending my email I received one back from Debra at Childline. She was very enthusiastic and was not really sure how to handle it, she suggested I gave her a call.

Not wanting to look tooo keen I left it till later that day and called her. She was in awe over the whole thing, and not really sure how should handle it, was it a national event, a local event, was I willing to have some press interest, how much involvement did I want from Childline.

To be honest I was not really sure, my basic aim was to raise awareness for Childline and the NSPCC and also to raise as much money as possible. With this in mind I was willing to have as much help from Childline as possible.

At the moment Debra has gone of to speak to her boss and see how Childline can help me with my challenge and I am awaiting her call back next week, so don't forget to find out how I got on.

Flora London Marathon 22/04/07

Well I have just completed the London Marathon, as ever it is a great experience and I managed a respectable 3:45:46 which considering the heat was not bad. However I did not suffer to badly from the heat (must have been my Aussie training) what I did suffer from was just the vast amount of people I had to try and run around.
I was actually quite close to the start (it only took 4 minutes) and everyone in front of me was suppose to be doing sub-3:45 marathons, however the first mile took 10:30 minutes. As I was suppose to be averaging 8 minute miles, I was devesated and it meant that I just could not get into my stride at all.
It did not stop there, I spent the whole 26.2 miles going around people walking, even worse walking along the magic blue line.
I do feel more can be done to stagger the start a little more so such bottle necks are avoided and also (as suggested by another runner at the end) anyone who peels off there pen sticker (it can;t come off it has to be peeled off) automatically goes to the back of the queue and is not allowed to jump in.

What do other people think about this or am I just being a boring runner, all comments welcome.