More rest for the wicked

My run may have been enjoyable last week but I followed that up with some hills sprints the next day (I know, I know...) and suffered through the achilles pain for the next three days where I couldn't even walk in the morning and was having to resort to the Achilles Shuffle.

I have now had another whole week off running and will continue to rest over Easter. Some time next week, I'll try another short run and if I am still in pain, I'll be taking a month off and will probably miss the SMH Half Marathon (again). Not something I want to do obviously but I need to get my legs back to 100% so I can crack that 3 hr marathon.

Time off for bad behaviour

After ten days of not running, I have been out in the fresh air for a nice easy 5km jog. And I loved it! For any running that is not yet aware of the torture of injury breaks, I can testify that it is an emotional rollercoaster of hope and self-doubt. One morning you might feel that the rest is doing you good and it's all part of the greater plan - later that night you might feel like packing it all in and getting a jump on the old codgers by swapping running for lawn bowls.

The run began with trepidation and finished with high hopes for the future. I concentrated on keeping my legs loose and running with an easy relaxed style, checking in with myself all the time as to the evenness of my gait and the balance of running off both legs. My right knee felt stiff but it did not affect my running style. Most importantly, I had no screams from my Achilles or my right calf/shin. In the end I finished happy. Garmin details of run >>

The key for my recovery now is to remember that I am in fact recovering! My two part plan is:

1. Start again slowly and limit myself to three short runs a week for a couple of weeks and then add more distance and a fourth short run until I feel strong again when I will add a fifth and eventually sixth run.

2. Stretch my calves and do my heel drops every day - ideally twice a day. Also, I will throw in some Qigong to help open up my hips. I hope to add a yoga session into my stretching & fitness routine this year too, the idea being to strengthen my body to allow me to increase my running training.

My next race is the SMH Half Marathon in mid-May and I think I'll be right back up to speed around then.

Resting injuries

I have finally given into the concept of taking time off running when I feel continuous pain. I haven't run for five days now and I am going to take the next week off too so that my calf might actually heal instead of get worse and it will do my Achilles tendons good too. I am not able to run at all comfortably at the moment and I feel like I am limping and altering my gait to compensate, which will just lead to futher injury.

It has taken a couple of months of pain and mental anguish to make the decision to rest for a prolonged time but I realised that if I want to still be running at all in 10 years time that I need to be more sensible now.

I will still stretch my muscles and tendons and then start slowly running again in a week or so. Once I get back on my feet I will re-assess my goals and targets but I am still confident of breaking the 3 hour barrier in the marathon at some point this year.

10km at Lunch

I ran a 10km in just under 45 minutes at lunch today around Walsh Bay and the Sydney Opera House. Ordinarily I wouldn't be that excited about the pace but considering all the injuries I've been dealing with, it was a good effort. I felt like I had plenty left in the tank and was only limited by the hamstring/calf pain in my right leg the whole run.

Garmin details of run >>


Injury update

My Achilles tendons feel like they are starting to respond to the stretches I've been doing each morning and the supposed neuroma isn't affect my running any more. I'm continuing to put Voltaren on my foot four times a day - it may be helping but I think the stretching and strenghening might be helping it also. I'm going to get a massage on my hamstrings and calves from the local Chinese place after work to hopefully work out the twinge and tightness.

Getting ready for SMH Half Marathon

After been diagnosed with a neuroma in my left foot and with continuing pain in my Achilles tendons, a niggle in my right knee and a twinge in my right hamstring & calf (not to mention tired legs in general), I took of week off running just to clear my head a bit and give my body a rest.

I have now gone back to using the orthotics that were made up for me a few years ago to help with over-pronation. This should help with the Achilles issues and hopefully also the neuroma. The sports doc has also added a metatarsal dome to help with the neuroma. I am also using anti-inflammatory gel directly on my foot to help reduce inflammation. Most importantly, I have committed myself to doing calf stretches and heel drops every day for three months which I hope will lead to resolution of all my injury issues. I am also taking a break from the SWEAT training group while I get my injuries under control.

Meanwhile, I signed up for the SMH Half Marathon today (bib #101) and scraped in to the preferred start off the back of my 2009 City2Surf time of 55:25. This will be my first time ever as a preferred starter in any race so I'm pretty excited about it!

I've started training again after my week off by doing a few slow 6km runs and will try not to over do it for the next couple of weeks but then ramp it up a bit and aim for a sub 84 minute time in the half. Hopefully later in the year I will get a good shot at a sub 80 too, either in the Blackmores or Melbourne half.

Let the training (and stretching) begin...

Note: I just checked the qualifying times for Boston and it looks like as I'll be 35 by the time of the race, I only need 3:15 to qualify.

Double or Nothing

After achieving my goal of running a sub 90 minute half marathon last year and setting new personal bests in all of my races, my new quest is to break the 3 hour mark for a marathon and qualify for the Boston Marathon along the way.  The current Boston qualifying mark for my age is 3:10:59 and my current pb is 3:16:52 as run at Melbourne in 2009.

I have joined a training group called SWEAT that runs in Centennial Park on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Along with doing my own runs on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, I will be running six days a week most weeks. SWEAT coach Sean Williams creates my running plan for each month and I record my runs using my Garmin 405 watch which automatically logs my running on Garmin Connect.

My target marathons this year are the Gold Coast Marathon and the Sydney Running Festival marathon.

Injuries

I am starting the year with a couple of injuries that I need to resolve quickly so I can keep up with the training. I have a suspected neuroma causing pain and other odd sensations in the fourth toe of my left foot which I have had an ultrasound and x-ray on and am going back to the sports doctor today to get the verdict and treatment plan.

I also have ongoing tendonsis in both achilles which I discovered get a lot better when I keep up my calf stretches and eccentric heel drops. A commitment to these simple exercises twice a day should help a great deal. If I can overcome these issues shortly and stick to a healthy diet for the most part, I am confident of making the sub 3 goal.

Goals for 2010 

Sutherland2Surf (11km) - 40mins (pb 41:54)
City2Surf (14km) - 50mins (pb 55:28)
Half-Marathon - 80mins (pb 85:51)
Marathon - 3hrs (pb 3:16:52)

Melbourne Marathon

On Sunday, I completed the final of my 2009 goals: I completed the Melbourne Marathon in a time of 3:16:52 - new personal best by over 1 hour! What a beautiful day it was too. Perfect running conditions. Sunny but cool and no wind to speak of.

You can see the course and other stuff that my Garmin 405 tracked and especially interesting are my 1km splits.

And this is the official results data.

The first half split is 1:37:18 and the second half was 1:39:47 but that doesn't tell the real story. For me it was more like this:

First 10km: I tried to keep the pace around 4:40min/k to run a 3:20 race as per my race plan. The 10k split shown on the official results is actually 10.5km so I was very much on track.

Second 10km: I decided that maybe I should push it a bit harder being that it is a race and all. Started running around 4:30min/km which felt more natural for me. I started to realise that unfortunately I was going to need a toilet stop at some point.

Next 12km: After a much needed toilet stop, I ran faster to catch back up to where I was before. I kept going at a decent speed and thought I might try to catch the 3:10 group. I was feeling very good at this point and dreaming of 3:09 or better. I ran a string of 4:20-4:25min km splits.

Next 5km: I ran into the back of slow half-marathoners as the groups merged at about the 33km mark. Very annoying. I started to feel some cramp coming on as I dodged through people and hopped up and down the curb to get around them, even having to stop dead at one point. 3:10 goal gone.

Next 4km: The half-marathon group split away again but at about the same time, I started really struggling to keep the cramp in my calves at bay. Other marathoners were falling apart worse than me – lots of runners trying to stretch out cramps against trees and one poor distressed guy was sitting on the ground. It was a slow struggle through 37km-41km. I had not quite hit the wall – but it was close. More like a fence than a wall. Sub 3:15 goal slipping away.

Last 1.2km: Head down and plodding away, I was just happy to be finishing under 3:20 at this point. Some woman ran right across my path and clipped me, causing my calf to cramp right up. I hoppled along in pain until I could shake the cramp. I spotted the '500m to go' marker and saw that I was on the ramp on the way up to the MCG. Suddenly I knew I had made it. I waited until about 100m out from the finish line then sprinted past a couple more people, just for fun. A guy posed for the camera 1m from the line and got cramp doing so so I nipped past him and finished rather happy.

Well, that's it for this blog. Even though this blog was named in honour of my half-marathon goal, it has allowed me to record my efforts in pursuing all my 2009 running goals successfully (and my 2008 goals not so successfully) but now that the year is coming to an end and I've achieved the 90 minute half-marathon, a blog named 90 Minutes has no future. Thanks for reading about my journey so far.

My increase in energy

Someone recently asked me for some insights into my training and my vast improvements in PBs. I put it down to an increase of energy that I got from changing my diet in the last year. I stopped eating red meat and chicken and started eating plenty of veges and drinking 'supergreens'.

I didn't run very much in the past - just did the bare minimum to make the distance of the races but now I just feel like running all the time and I am enjoying it so much that I train a lot more.

That's it basically. I don't have much clue as to what training I should be doing but I get some ideas from reading magazines, books and Cool Running (of course!) and then I do what feels right each week (along with the long runs that hardly ever feel right lol). You can see my running log here.

My plan is to sit down after the Melbourne Marathon and create a better structured training plan for over summer so I can beat all my personals bests again next year!

Misson Accomplished!

Today I ran the half marathon in under 90 minutes! All the training has paid off and I have a new PB of 85:51!

More to come later - off to sleep now...

The Race

I work up on the morning of the race at 3.30am. The plan was to get up at 4am but once awake, I decided to get out there early. A clear day, it was still dark but was forecast for sun - not that I was expecting to be out in the sun too long given a 6.20am start.

After eating a Powerbar and getting ready, I had to wait for the train to Milson's Point as I was way too early! The pre-start was pretty easy going and we didn't even line up until about 15mins before the race - very different than the City2Surf start. I didn't get a great start, being stuck behind some slow runners but it cleared out after a couple of hundred metres and my quest to beat the 90 minute mark was under way.

I knew as I was going over the bridge that I was going out too hard but I decided just to keep going at under 4min/ks for as long as I could - which turned out to be about 7km...

I took an energy gel at about 9km and after the turn around point I just tried to stick as close to 4min/k as I could on the way back into the city. As the hills (inclines really but who's counting?) starting looming I found I was slowing down and ran a couple of 4:15s and even a 4:21 at one point. I could tell that by the 16km mark, I had lost the sub-84 goal that I secretly had and that I would be lucky to go sub-85. Then not soon after I realised I'm looking at 86+ unless I picked up the pace.

As I got into the familiar surrounds of Hickson Road at around 18km, I made an effort to catch the three guys I could see in front of me. I had spent the last 4-5km running pretty much alone and I figured I was the tail end of the sub-85 hopefuls. I didn't have much left as we came into the finish stretch at the Opera House but managed a little 50m sprint to the line. My guntime turned out to be 85:59 so I'm glad I dug in at the end!

As I crossed the line, I was happy to finally put the sub-90 goal to rest. After the Melbourne Marathon, I will start work on some new goals. Sub-80, here I come!

The long run and the half

Since I last blogged excitedly about running the City2Surf in a pb, I have logged around 258km over five weeks including three long runs of 30km, 33km and 36km on three consecutive Sundays. The 33km run was the biggest struggle I had, mostly due to a lack of fuel before (breakfast) and during (I only had one gel) the run. I hit the wall at about 28km and my love of running disappeared somewhere between Darling Harbour and the Sydney Opera House. I think additional contributing factors were starting too fast (4:30 min/km) and starting too late in the morning as the sun heated up the city fairly quickly that day.

I prepared for the next week's 36km run with all of that in mind, and got up at 5am to eat breakfast and beat the sun. I almost never eat before running but since the pain of the previous week, I now plan to always eat before any 30km+ run. I also took along three gels (tried GU for the first time instead of Powerbar, which I like better now because they are not as thick) and my trusty 3L Camelbak, freshly cleaned with a newly purchased cleaning pack. At $50, it was a massive rip-off but at least the water tasted good for a change and the gross mold I discovered in the tube was gone. I kept to a steady 5 min/km as much as I could and had the best long run I've ever had! Glad I figured out what works and what doesn't before the Melbourne Marathon in three weeks.

My focus switched after the 36km to the Blackmore's Half Marathon here in Sydney on September 20th. I feel very confident of breaking the 90 minute mark and I am really aim for close to 85 mins now. My plan is to go out at 4 min/kms and hold on for as long as I can. I know I can do it over 14km (as done in City2Surf) and I'm hoping I will be able to keep it up during the 21.1km until I get close enough to smell the finish line.

The race starts at 6.20am so I will be up at 4am getting prepared and heading to catch the train to Milson's Point at 4.40am. I have a preferred start (bib number #612) so I think I will get a good clear run. The sub 90 minutes half marathon is what this blog has been all about since I started it over 18 months ago and the moment of truth is only two days away. I am injury-free and I already have my Brooks Racer ST4s out and ready to go. I can hardly wait!