Wednesday 4 January 2012

injury updates ... stats ... other stuff

Quite a bit to get through today so ... here goes ...

My rehab from the calcaneous stress fracture and achilles tendon injury seems to be progressing very well at the moment.  Until Sunday evening I was a little unsure as to whether the ankle was actually getting any better.  But then, from Monday morning, things seemed to click into place and I'm now confident that my rehab is going to plan.

It appears that the many hours spent massaging, icing, stretching, etc are finally paying dividends and that got me round to thinking about 2011 ... and then 2012.

Last year began with a knee injury which limited training during the whole of January but after that things went exceptionally well apart from the two important races.  In the first of those it was a momentary lapse of concentration that cost me the winner's trophy (and the course record by almost an hour).  That's something that needs to be corrected in the next year or two.  You can read that story on this page.

The second (and most important) race was a different story entirely.  I was in very good shape for that one but, stupidly, I stuck to my pre race plans and almost everyone else was adjusting theirs to take account of the very windy weather in Llandudno.  Having said that, if a very bad run produces 220km (136.7 miles) what would a very good have produced ?  There's something for me to think about.

So ... two big races completed and two important lessons learned.

Now, for everyone who's interested in the numbers, here are a few from 2011:

running
over 2444 miles (3933 km) in the year ... 46.9 miles per week (75.4 km per week) ... very nearly an hour per day

cycling
almost 18 minutes per day on average

stretching
almost 14 minutes per day on average

strength training
over 25 minutes per day on average

rehab stuff
over 18 minutes per day on average (not including ice)

In total my training and rehab took over 830 hours last year ... that's over 2 hours 16 per day which doesn't include changing clothes, showering, etc.


My end of year 24 hr ranking is correspondingly a bit disappointing and the stats read:

World ... 72 (down from 37)
Europe ... 49 (down from 26)
UK ... 5 (down from 4)
England ... 4 ? (last year 3)

Full details and year by year comparisons can be found over on this page.


OK ... on to other stuff now.
I was saddened to learn yesterday of the recent death of the great coach Frank Horwill.  I'm sure I've talked about him in previous posts but his wisdom and writings have been a large source of information about all thing training related.  I highly recommend that all runners read the articles on his club's website - here.

Local athlete Racheal Bamford (who lives about 200m from me) recently represented the North of England in the Nos Galan 5k in Wales recently.  She finished first woman on the uphill course with a time of 16:44.  Fantastic ... well done to her ... and she's going to get quicker.

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