Not quite going as planned...but I will persevere!

I am still doing the marathon, I have that must determination still... but 2 weeks into my training I pushed too hard and ended up developing mild shin-splints. I stopped my training plan, and I took to the gym, focusing on lower leg strength. With my previous injury, (the torn calf ligament), I had spent too long strengthening my right leg, and that healed up nicely. But I neglected my left leg, and found out that limbs don't like being neglected, so when I came back, and when I really needed it, it threw its toys out of the pram. Ok, so my personification of my left leg is more for comedic purposes, but it really felt like that.

The other obstacle in my way (apart from a hectic work and Swedish study schedule) is heart fitness. I feel fitter than I have ever done, but at football training my  heart rate was spiking to 195 BPM. I also ran a 10 KM Winter Race 3 weeks ago, (a target to be back from the shin splints) and ran it in less than an hour (59:49 was my official time). I felt good, very good, especially when I pushed it at the end, but my heart rate spiked again to 201bpm at the last step. Even with the light research I have been doing, I know that even 200 bpm is high! I read that a constant HR of 180 is even considered high.

I have booked an appointment with the doctors, and in the meantime I have taken to conditioning training, which I feel is better in the long run for the big race. This means that I will try and keep my HR at 160 bpm, even if it means a slow jog, then after a week or so, my pace will have to increase to keep at that rate. I get great interval training at football practice, some good body conditioning on top of what I am doing in the gym. I have a target of 5 hours to finish, which I know is realistic but I'll just be happy to finish the race this year.

My heart rate has never been a worry to me before getting a HR monitor from Annie for my birthday. (a Polar M400 watch with a chest HR monitor - a review to come soon). Its great, its accurate and it even speaks to the cardio machines at my gym which means the machines can stop beeping at me when I don't hold the HR sensors the right way. (Another sign that we are being controlled by machines already, and AI isn't even here yet - start of Skynet methinks ;) ) I have, however, stopped wearing it to football as I was focusing more of my HR that playing football, something I think other players might have been getting annoyed at.

I have been attending a great physio in Gothenburg, who got me through the calf injury, and gave me some great advice on the shins too. He mentioned that some people do have naturally high cardio zones, and if I felt good then I shouldn't worry, but I should still check with a doctor.

And a question to any readers of this post, have you used HR monitors before? What experience have you had of first using them? And have you experienced the high HR peaking before? 

As I said at the start. I am determined to finish the race. My next task is to try some refueling plans, and Brighton Marathon have given some brilliant guidelines for before, after and during the race.

I am also still a way off hitting my target for the charity, 28 Too Many, that I am running for. You can click the link to find out what they are about, and can click here to go straight to the giving page. They have had a very productive year, and awareness of FGM has improved at lot. They are still to get a full picture of how much FGM is a problem in all 28 African countries, but your donations will go towards finding that out, so more effective work can be
done to stop this atrocity. It's something that keeps me running, that keeps me focused on the goal.

3 days before training really starts!

Injury free, just about, ran 6.4km two days ago so I'm just about ready for the hard graft of marathon running. My 16 week training plan starts on Tuesday. 

But training prep hasn't gone completely to plan. The injury in my last post has kept me out of action for the remainder of the football season, and I have gain at least half the weight I lost in the first place through lack of training. This is where the discipline will really need to kick in. 

Luckily for me, I am used to loosing weight I have gained and the quicker it goes on, the quicker it can come off. I can still run for over 40 mins, so the fitness is about still there and I don't have to start again completely from scratch. 

Starting to run is hard. Your body isn't used to it, and it is harder cardiovascular than almost any other form of exercise. But I know I need to keep at it, keep running when my body says no, but still listen to it when I am pushing it too much. Running is just as much a mental battle and it is a physical one. That's what happened when I tried to come back from injury too fast. 

I was running with a friend who is a little competitive, and I was running at my full pace when 3km in... Rip. My calf tore again, slightly different place. In one way it was good, the original injury was healing nicely, but I had a new one. More rest. More ice. More rehab. Less running. Less exercise. Less progress. 

The mental battle is about remembering that you are human, and that running is not a competition against anyone else apart from yourself. You win when you reach a distance, a time, a pace. You lose when you choose to not run when you can. Just getting out there and running the distance you want makes you a winner. (Being injured, or I'll doesn't count as being a loser, I'll let you off that one). 

If you need to walk to catch your breath for a couple of minutes do it. If you need to stop and stretch out your back or sore calf, do it. Making progress is about doing a little better than your previous run. 

The worst thing you can do as a runner though is to compare yourself to another runner. Comparison is general is just evil. You either feel good about yourself to a degree of cockiness, or you feel bad about yourself to a point of eventually saying, 'what's the point?' That's when you let yourself lose. 

So keep it up, run for the reason you want to run, to keep fit, to get fit, to reach a personal goal, to keep a healthy heart, to get some fresh air. I don't enjoy every single run I do, sometimes it's torture, but more times than not, I enjoy it. It clears my head, I find perspective again, and life feels a lot better. The next few months won't be most fun, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Training plan set... Now just to shake off this injury!

Yep, thats right. I'm injured.

It happened a couple of months ago, I ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes, then stopped when I felt a cramp in my right calf. I flew back to Sweden a day later, and the next football training session I stepped in to block the ball and it went. I was hoping to shake it off, but no. The tendon was torn (as I was to find out). 

20 minutes after...

I could stand, but not walk. Anything where my ankle joint would push me forward was agony... Luckily i could still cycle. But I was out of action and I didn't know how long for. 

Thankfully it was 3 weeks, so I was told by my Physio. I went to a sports rehab clinic in Gothenburg, the same clinic that serves all the local sports teams, so I knew I they knew what they were doing. 

They started me on a very simple routine of ankle stretches that would straighten the muscle fibers as they healed, which seemed to go well.. I was being a good patient, following to the book. A week later and healing was going faster than expected (yes, of course I prayed for it), and it was going well. 

They upped my excercises and even put me on a gentle running routine the week after. Slow starting interval jogging, very light... However, the term had started, I had longer hours in the office so I could put in the running. 

The 'ghosts' of being injured had started to haunt me. You know, feeling down, missing the endorphins rush from the higher heart rate, not eating as much fruit, eating more ice cream, routine changes and it gets harder to keep up. And to add to it, stress levels have been rising and I haven't had that release I normally get from running. 

Then I went for a run, finally having a morning to myself... And 3km in, I'm back to the beginning. I had pushed myself to far too soon. The tear had come back, exactly the same. I cannot begin to describe the frustration I felt at that moment. Adding to the fact we had friends visiting who wanted to go to the local theme park, so I couldn't even rest it up. 

So the last 3 weeks have probably been the laziest weeks I've had in a long time in terms of exercise. I rested the first week from cycling even, to really rest my leg. Yesterday was the first time I went to the gym in 3 weeks, and today I ran 4.6km, slowly, in intervals, in very controlled circumstances (my wife was with me and reminded me often that I was still injured-that's pretty intense controlled circumstances). 

But it was ok. My calf is feeling a little sore, but I think that it good as I have pushed it to its limit, so I can now rest, let that repair and go again. 

Injury can be a real pain, and I think it took my mentality with it. I have accomplished a lot this year with fitness and weight loss, and I think I had let that become too much apart of who I was. Just as much as I had let being overweight for the majority of my life become my identity for the first 20 years of my life. It took a while to get that out of my system. Who I am is not what I do, who I am is not how far I run, how much weight I lose. I need to rest my identity in something so much more certain, then I can enjoy the fitness I have without being afraid of losing it. 

Today I set up my training scheme for the marathon. I start on December 23rd, but I still need to get into shape before then. Then I will have 16 weeks to train properly. I have a target of under 4 hours. Maybe wishful thinking, but with the right discipline, the right diet, and enough support, I am sure I can crack that time. I am half-way to reaching my target amount, please join in by sponsoring me for this really important cause. The link is here. http://bit.ly/1kLC0ZU