running home by Alaistair

Figure it makes you appreciate something more when it’s taken away if only for short while. Certainly makes you understand what’s important and for me just running, any running is enough so if I’ve got to slow things down for a while then so be it…in the mean time we rest, build things up steady and run the races as they come.

After the frustrations of Rainton my sessions with the physio seemed to get more desperate as he suggested longer and longer breaks from running whilst I was guiltily, secretly trying to make things happen by slowly introducing running.

Sun 17 Jun was for me an important Yorkshire Dales Series fixture at Burton Leonard, just had to run it to keep my chances alive of a good finish in the series. It’s a real tough race with the vast majority of the route either off road or on narrow lanes & tracks.

Yes and not forgetting the water feature. Looked real tricky this year as was carrying extra water but to be honest was no problem at all; feet dried fairly quickly! Didn’t do anything crazy and ran a real controlled race and can honestly say that I bizarrely found myself actually enjoying myself.

Sun 17 Jul,  Burton Leonard 10K,  47:56

Pace Splits: 6:59, 7:14, 8:08, 7:41, 8:13, 8:12, 6:46

Posn:  57/170.  M50 9th

The week following had a real surprising session at the physio; after lengthy session of him trying to mobilise a particular area of the ankle joint he eventually had me running at pace pain free on the treadmill. Whilst the next day the ankle remained sore it left me far more positive about making things happen, not only that the physio had given me the green light to finally introduce running.

Wed 20 ran 5K on the treadmill followed by 7.28 miles on the road Fri 22, the aches whilst they were still there was not in pain so finally progress was happening.

Yesterday we travelled to Harrogate for a monthly club fixture, travelled with Julie & Viv (aka RTG). The race went well in fairly good conditions although perhaps a bit on the warm side. The route whilst hilly (total elevation gain 370ft) was very pleasant leafy suburbia.

Once again ran a controlled race and held back from pushing to hard. As the run unravelled didn’t really expect a quick time and mostly ignored the splits so into the final quarter mile was surprised just how close to last years time I’d managed to run.

Sun 24 Jul,  Harrogate 10K,  44:36

Pace splits: 7:05, 7:15, 6:51, 7:29, 7:31, 7:11, 6:24

Posn:  146/541.  M50 17th

Before & after the race had more issues with ITB than ankle pain! This week will try to once again step things up slightly if possible but with more added ITB stretches ready for the next weekends York 10K.