My Running Slump

‘What I ended up with was a sense of lethargy, and before I knew it, I felt covered by a thin film of, something I’ve since dubbed runner’s blues…. I lost the enthusiasm I’d always had for the act of running itself. Fatigue was a factor, but that wasn’t as clear as before’- Haruki Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about Running.

I haven’t really been running properly since I did the Abingdon Marathon in October and I cannot seem to shake this feeling of being indecisive about whether I run or not. That is why I began this blog with a quote from Murakami, as he so effortlessly describes the feeling a runner has after their own accomplishment. Admittedly Murakami was talking about 62 mile race, and I am talking about a marathon, but I genuinely believe all running achievements are relative to the person doing them (be it a Parkun or the Barkley marathon).  I think part of it was down to simply having a slight burnout from running solidly from June to the end of October, something that I realised I have never done before. Another reason is that I have lost that feeling from running, which tends to come with a successful marathon training cycle, which is primarily that of progress. What I mean by that is you feel like you are improving second by second, minute by minute, race by race or mile by mile during your training. It can be ordinary moments as well; like running for the bus or up the stairs and finding that it is reassuringly easy. All those tiny moments make me think how great running is and after Abingdon I felt like I had lost that. 

Indeed I was completely surprised by my result at Abingdon and in some ways achieved the goal of this blog, which was to run a marathon in under three hours.  I am still immensely proud of the time I achieved at Abingdon, but I am worried that it could be a one-off event and in some ways it feels like a distant memory. I mean this specifically to the training that I was doing and my worries about getting injured in the build up to London. I suppose I just made the assumption that I could just make under three hours or just over it at Abingdon, and then have another go at London. In that sense it has made me re-evaluate what I want from running, but at the same time I feel quite lost about it.

‘Perhaps all these various factors had combined into a mysterious cocktail inside me. As the person involved in this, it’s hard for me to analyse it objectively. Whatever it was, runner’s blues was my name for it’- Murakami.

I realise how lucky I am to be able to be able to run London next year and also have the option to run London in 2018 as well. I just want to be sure I approach it in the right way. One of the most common pitfalls I have seen, partially experienced and heard about is runners setting unrealistic running goals; then not enjoying their marathon because they didn’t achieve their goal, despite running well. I don’t want to do this at London. I remember how amazing the Brighton Marathon in 2014 was, where I didn’t have any goals and it was simply to enjoy the city and the marathon for what they were.  In marathon timescales, London is looming in around five months’ time. For most people that may seem like a long time; but to properly build your base and then once you have done that to train hard for two to three months, it is actually a relatively short period of time. In this context I will just have to see how I feel at the beginning of January and take it from there.

More than anything I just want to get back to enjoying running. Believe it or not, the time I got at Abingdon was just a by-product of an amazing training cycle and being very grateful to be able to run long-distance races after an injury.

So that is where I will start with my running, with the patience that I employed when I had my injury. Building back up slowly, but surely. For now I will not be thinking about what personal bests I want to aim for, what races I need to tackle before London and what paces I should be targeting for my training. It will just be about putting one foot in front of the other.

‘Now I feel like I ‘m finally getting away from the runner’s blues fog that’s surrounded me for so long. Not that I’ve completely rid myself of it, but I can sense something beginning to stir…as I lace up my running shoes, I can catch a faint sign of something in the air, and within me’- Murakami.

Achieving at Abingdon: a surprise marathon personal best

This is why I run. For those moments where everything flows and you can just enjoy the race.

A photo posted by Edward (@uncertainrunner) on Oct 23, 2016 at 3:04pm PDT

My experience of marathons to date was of large crowds, booming music, large sponsor banners and it being a general chore to get to the main starting point of the race. Tilsley Park in Abingdon, Oxford was in complete contrast to the large marathons that I had attended (Brighton specifically comes to mind). On this cold, crisp and overcast morning there were few indications that anything was about to occur, if it weren’t for the signs and cones indicating road closures, you could have been forgiven for thinking a large track meet was going to take place.

Getting Back on Track

Descending Dead Woman's Pass

So it has been a very busy couple of months- August and September to be exact. It currently feels like I am playing ‘catch-up’ with all my hobbies, this blog being one of the many things that I have had to leave dormant while dealing with a few really exciting weeks. I have also been trying to think of theme(s) to link all the many things that I have been doing during August and September. After quite a lot of thought, it has to be humility and perspective. I chose humility because I realise how lucky I am to be able to come back from my injury and be able to train for a marathon again. I hope I have found some sort of perspective by being able to juggle the many things that life throws at me, whilst still finding time to enjoy running. 

Recovering from Injury: Sticking to a Plan

In my last post I talked about how I tried to deal with the uncertainty of coming back from injury, the things I had learnt from my injury and how I planned to get back into marathon training after missing out on London 2016. I don’t want to get too bogged down in how to recover from injury, that’s more for your osteopath/ physio to deal with. I am more concerned with how to follow a marathon plan, whilst you are still getting back from your particular injury. These are the top 10 things that I have learnt from trying to train whilst still coming back from an injury:

1)      Don’t be afraid to step back and ask yourself why you are training for a particular type of sporting event. It may not sound very helpful as the first bit of advice when coming back from injury, but it’s definitely something that allows you assess what you can and can’t do. What I mean by this, is that if you have had a serious injury then you may not be able to train like you used to.

When I was trying to recover from my calf  injury I took up a lot of swimming and considered doing a few swimming events in the Summer, because I was worried I still wouldn’t be able to run by then. Therefore it’s worth looking at what other type of sporting events you can get into if you can’t train like you used to.  In my opinion the main aim of recovery is to get over your injury and stay fit; stepping back and reassessing what you can do is one of the first ways of doing that.

Dealing with Uncertainty

It’s going to be a fairly short post from me for June. I have been juggling loads of things whilst trying to improve my running form, to get back to what it was before my Watford Half Marathon. Overall I think it has been pretty successful, with most of June being spent running a weekly mileage of around 30 miles and above. However this distance has not been without its niggles and with the quality running sessions I have added in; my right lower back and glute have  become quite tense over the last couple of weeks. Luckily I have had the advice of my fellow club members, as well the physio who I have been seeing for the last couple of months about my calf and my more recent issues.

So in a lot of ways things are looking positive with my running and I feel like I am heading in the right direction. That said I am still apprehensive, as I begin my marathon training. Ultimately the reason for feeling like this is the fear of becoming injured again, therefore having to miss another marathon this year; which to be honest would lead me to contemplating whether I should train for another marathon in 2017. Being injured is not a great feeling, but it does give you a marker as to what you can and can’t do in regards to training. Now that I am relatively okay and am free to start increasing my mileage, this is where the uncertainty comes in. How do I know when I have pushed myself too much? What sort of sessions take more out of me than others? These are questions that I can’t answer right now, but will only be able to know once I have begun my marathon training.

Running in Limbo

It has been a strange month or so since my last post. Things have been moving in a very positive direction for my running. In general my calf seems to be holding up well with a weekly mileage of between 20 – 29 miles, including tempo sessions and intervals. However I have felt that I haven’t had a real sense of structure to my running recently. This is mainly down to tearing my calf (back in February) and also having to sit out of the London marathon this year. Though it has also been about being patient and letting my calf heal, especially with the occasional twinges that seem to haunt my running at the moment. Indeed it has been pretty difficult to determine whether my calf has just been put through a tough run or whether I have exhausted the muscle. This feeling usually occurs after the end of my longest run (currently 10 miles) or after a hard session. 

The result of this inability to understand whether I have pushed my calf too much- either because of my past experience from pushing myself too hard during my marathon training  or that I am just experiencing phantom pains in my calf- has led me to feel in a sort of limbo. I am reluctant to enter the short, sharp and hard races that the summer running season brings. At the moment it feels like I am on the running equivalent of being on a desert island; you hope that you will be rescued soon, but you do not know when. I know that my calf is healing and that I am being able to do more with it, but I really don’t know when I can start pushing as hard as I did for London. Until you really push yourself beyond your current limits do you really ever know how far you can go? It is from this reasoning that I am going to run the North Downs Race on Sunday 26^th June. This race is over an undulating 18 mile course and should hopefully instil a sense of confidence when approaching my marathon training again. If this goes according to plan then I will try to enter the 5km and 10km Sri Chinmony London races in July. These speed races should then prepare me for my two half-marathons (in August and September), which combined with my overall marathon training should help me towards a personal best at Abingdon.

Parkrun and Public Spaces

The London Marathon has finished for another year, and for over 30 years hundreds and thousands of people have experienced what is arguably one of the world’s greatest marathons to race. Though how do you prepare for such an event as a marathon? People have come up with all sorts of plans and the latest training advice that makes a marathon easier to train for, but a cornerstone of any effective marathon plan will be running a certain number of miles per week. Inevitably this will lead to people running through parks, shared public spaces in cities, woodlands, areas of outstanding natural beauty, etc.  There’s no doubt that wherever people will be running, they will most likely be sharing that place with people who are not running. This leads to a question of what the purpose of public spaces are for: sport, fitness classes, relaxing, walking? There is no easy answer and anyone who goes to a park will be able to see the whole variety of different activities that I have just mentioned.