07/07/20 – From R.E.D. Alert to Merely A.L.A.R.M.E.D.

You might remember that my last blog entry saw me with a strained, possibly sprained ankle after an unfortunate encounter with a rabbit-hole. This led to something of a rethink about my daily activity.

I’ve been doing at least a mile every day, otherwise known as R.E.D. (Run Every Day) for over a 1,000 consecutive days, but the injury had forced me to slow to walking pace. A new acronym was needed. During the month, I came up with A.L.A.R.M.E.D. – At Least A Random Mile Every Day. The Random factor being the pace I would choose to complete my daily task.

As for that injury, it healed pretty fast as it happened, definately strain rather than sprain. After a couple of days, I stopped the regular ice and compression as the swelling largely subsided. Whilst out for my Tuesday mile, I noticed that the ankle was stiff more than sore, so I tentatively tried running for 30 seconds, a few times within the mile. It didn’t seem to aggravate anything other than Sue when I told her. In fairness, dhe was probably right to scold me for being reckless. By the end of the week, I had progressed back to running the mile again, even if my foot was still kaleidoscoping through some pretty exotic colours.

I decided to join Sue doing parkrun the following Saturday morning, back at South Norwood, I had every intention of taking it steady but somehow, without really trying or looking at my watch, I finally did get under that 35 minute barrier with a run of 34:40. Not having already run half the distance before the start line, makes a bigger difference than I imagined.

One other thing I noticed by cutting down my mileage and speed down during the week: my ever-present glute pain was almost non-existent. This sparked off an idea in my head. Maybe I shouldn’t aim to run a distance every day. Instead, intersperse some days of walking.

This was working so well that later in the month I tried to do a 5 mile training run with Sue and her brother on the North Downs Way. The glute let me know that it still *really* doesn’t like inclines: up or down. I’ve also found after a recent six hour driving job that it doesn’t much care for that either. Given driving was the initial cause, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at that.

I guess it was tempting fate slightly, but last Saturday we returned to the scene of ‘the crime’: Beckenham Place Park. I was itching to see what that first run would have come in at, had I not injured myself. All my four South Norwood parkruns in June, I’d gone under 35 minutes and had been particularly pleased with a 33: 40. Was this a sign some semblance of speed finally returning? Only one way to find out, hit up the faster, flattest local route.

Another warm morning, but this time no incidents to report and I came in a shade under 32 minutes, Sue also encouragingly notched her lockdown PB, too. The timing is good as it’s around now that our thoughts need to return to our London Marathon training schedule.

I have to be honest here, I just can’t see any way that the Marathon goes ahead on 4th October as things stand at present. Since the injury, I’ve not run much more than 10k in one go, whereas I was hoping to keep a Half Marathon distance in my legs.

The motivation to train over longer distances just isn’t there right now.