Target spotted

Having a lazy Sunday for now until I get over it and crack on with my planned 1 hour kettlebell endurance circuit - something I have devised to substitute the long run I would have been doing otherwise on a Sunday.

Anyway over the course of my lazy Sunday I spent some time doing some random browsing on the internet, unsurprisingly, running related it was. I stumbled across an article on celebrities and famous faces who have completed marathons, which you can read for yourself here.

Scrolling down the page, under politicians....George W Bush...3:44:52. Given my disdain for the 'Dubya' years and their impact on the world (I am not really a political person but he just managed to p!$$ me off big time) I think I will feel a personal sense of satisfaction to cross the finish line in 3:44:51 (or less!).

Hell of a lot of work to do for someone who can't actually run at the minute, and when I could run, my 10k PB was over an hour. Just about 13 months to go...I like a challenge.

Apollo

Following on from my last post (Going Greek), I went out today and got me some sparkly new shoes more appropriate to my running style which control the pronation my flat feet give me (the way feet roll in when you run). They shall be named Apollo.

Enter the Asics Gel Foundation 8's:

What a beast.

And full credit to the shop I got them from, for providing excellent service, taking a good look at the rogue shoes that hurt my IT band and helping me find what I now hope will be my Apollo's

The Runner's Shop in Beckenham

Woohoo - I shall be back on my running feet in a matter of time and I will be ready to go with these new beauties....I hope!

Going Greek

This is clearly the sign of someone with way too much time on their hands - and clearly suffering from running withdrawal symptoms. It has now been 39 days since I was last able to run in comfort. When I put it that way it doesn't sound too bad, but when I say over 5 weeks or over 1 month, it actually stings!

Anyways, I have decided to start naming my training equipment and decided to go for a general theme of Greek mythology. It probably should not be any sort of surprise - marathons were started by the ancient Greek and they were all super-humans back then.

So taking things in turn:

Foam roller: Paeon
Physician of the gods. That one was too easy.

My 2 tennis balls taped together: Asclepius
God of medicine and healing - let's hope it rubs off on my leg as well.

I feel like having a rant...again...

Still going in circles with this stupid knee of mine. Damn ITBS.

Was wondering if it is my new shoes that caused it rather than being an absolute numpty on the stairs. So next plan of action is to get a proper biomechanical analysis done by a podiatrist to work out what caused my injury. I am not convinced I did it on the stairs (although that is what made it flare up!) because I have managed to do the same thing again a couple of times and on neither occasion did it have any side effect.

The only different thing on the time my ITBS flared up was the night before that I ran in my new shoes for the first time.

The state of play...

It has been over 2 weeks since my last update on here. I should have been revelling these last few days in the glory of completing my first ever half marathon. Instead, I am still being a miserable b*st*rd holding a grudge against the world for my stupid knee.

I am back to physio on Friday for what I hope will be one of the last times. The knee is slowly getting there , although it does have ups and downs on a daily basis, which is probably the single most frustrating aspect of it all - lack of consistency to tell me if I am doing something right or wrong.

Like this morning, when I woke up my knee felt about 98% there - by the time I got down the stairs back down to about 80%, back up the stairs and doing my stretching, about 95%, in the car on the way to work about 75%, then at work and home now, about 90%. I don't like these fluctuations.

D day tomorrow

This injury has been getting to me. Majorly. I can't think about anything else at the minute - and I barely think straight at the best of times! Blogging has completely gone out the window!

Physio session again tomorrow, after which I think I will make my final decision.

The way I see it, if I am not 100%, I would rather not do it - my ultimate goal is still the full marathon next year, and risking aggravating an injury on a half marathon is just not worth it long term. To be honest, even if I am 100%, the complete loss of confidence in my legs will be holding me back. Think it will take some time to get that one back unfortunately.

So chances are, despite as much as it will hurt (and believe me it will!), I think I would be sensible to withdraw from this one, and give myself a few more weeks to build up my leg strength and confidence again. I will post again tomorrow.