Longest Run, Longest Ride

A vast improvement on the injury and last week I managed about 25miles in total with a longest run of 40 minutes yesterday (Sunday), I followed this with my longest bike ride to date, a 143mile round trip from Tiptree to Southwold (and back).

Lunch stop in Southwold

The weather was absolutely perfect for a nice long ride, warm but not too hot with only a slight breeze, and Southwold was a great stop for lunch where I had the best sausage roll ever, it was worth cycling there just for that!!

So with my injury nearly cleared up I can concentrate on building the miles up and getting back into some sort of shape. I think a marathon this year is probably out of the question but I'm sure I can start racing again in a month or so.

The long slow road to recovery

First post for a while as I haven't had too much to write about. First things first, the beard has gone, much to my mothers delight.

With Beard

With Moustache (definitely now gone!)

My injury seems to be clearing up and last week I managed a total of 4 miles for the week, consisting of 4 x 1mile runs. On each run I still had some discomfort but every day it takes a bit longer for the discomfort to start. This week I have upped the run length to 2miles, it's all going in the right direction but it's going to take some time before I'm firing on all cylinders.

On a brighter note, I purchased myself a second hand but pretty much brand new road bike and have been keeping fit with cycling and absolutely loving it! I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a runner not a cyclist, but like I say at least it's keeping me fit.

My new bike (the smaller red one)

Still Injured

Still injured and instead of heading back to Iten as originally planned I'm heading back to the physio :-( After two weeks of no running I headed out on Saturday for a short ten minute test run, all felt good with only a dull ache in my lower back, unfortunately the injury was slightly painful during the rest of the day and after another short 15min run on Sunday and 20mins today I realised the pain was only getting worse and if I pushed things at all I would set myself back considerably.

One good outcome of this injury is I have really got into cycling. It's funny, as I have been running for years I know quite a bit about training, i.e. if someone runs 100 miles a week this is good going, more than 140miles a week is pretty hard core (obviously this applies to distance running not sprinting). But when it comes to cycling I haven't got a clue what is considered "hard" training or a lot of miles, is 50miles a day decent going, or 100miles a day??? I've just been going out on my dads "town and trail" bike until I get bored or I run out of road. Definitely considering getting myself an entry level road bike.

I think if I couldn't cycle or do some sort of exercise I wold go crazy, but none of them give me the same feeling as running, I've just got to take my time getting back from this injury, it's just frustrating not being able run when I am so used to doing it every day....

By the way my beard is coming along nicely, more on this later....