Saturday, 7 May 2011

unusual week

Following Sunday's painful afternoon and evening I decided that there would be no running on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday but there would be plenty of ice, ibuprofen and rest for the old left foot.  I never planned to run on Wednesday anyway as it was Fay's birthday and also our wedding anniversary.  Yes, I know, we married on her birthday [her 21st actually] ... and we became engaged on her 18th birthday.  Had a good day relaxing, walking and eating out.  And I found some very unusual coffee in Bettys in Ilkley ... this stuff comes from Nepal.  Now I didn't know the stuff grew in the Himalayas and I've certainly never heard it mentioned by anyone.  It tastes good though - well worth a trip to Bettys - and the £7 per 100g

My foot injury seems to be settling down nicely now.  I find it hard to believe that I couldn't walk on Sunday afternoon without a severe limp.  The second half of Thursday's race was quite painful but by Friday morning it had settled down again and now things are now almost back to normal.  And the only training I missed was a long run (24 miles) and a steady 6 miler scheduled for the following day.

Back to Thursday's race.  It was the first event in this year's Harrogate League.  The new route organised by Thirsk & Sowerby Harriers was a flat 9.4 km and to start with I was a bit worried about my foot although all day it had been completely pain free.  In the race itself I probably ran the first half a bit quicker than I should have but overall I was pleased with my time of 37:25 (equivalent to a 39:48 10k) and my position of 57th.

On Friday afternoon I had a session of hill reps planned .  I didn't know how they would turn out as they were less than 24 hours after the race.  As it happened I completed them much faster than usual ... about 15s per mile faster.  With no adverse reaction to my foot.  I'm still using the ball of foot cushion though when running or walking for any length of time.  A very good training session but I'm not sure why it was so good.

Last night Keir took part in the annual Torch Race - a relay race between local scout groups.  The race starts in Otley and finishes at the top of The Chevin ... a climb of about 200m in about 2.4km.

In Keir's age group his team finished first and were presented with the trophy by Richard Nerurkar's mum.  Richard is a local chap or my age who represented Britain in the marathon and 10,000m at Olympic and World Championship level in the early 1990s.  I often ran against him as a schoolboy - but he always beat me.  We didn't race ultras though.

Recently come across various newspaper articles - the links to them are on the media page.  I think there are one or two inaccuracies but we can't have everything.

1 comment:

Debs M-C said...

Hope your foot gets better soon. I had problems with my midtarsal a a few years ago and found that walking in high heels was the ony relief...but I guess that's not the advice you want to hear :-)