Just a little background information for everyone to why I am having to restart my training. In March this year I ran the Paris marathon which although not a PB I still managed to get under 3 hours (just) which I was happy at because it was 30C. For the marathon I had decided early on in the training to do an 18 week schedule and increase my weekly milage to 70 miles. Bad move. I think that I peaked at about 10 weeks and rarely ever reached the 70 miles per week. I constantly felt fatigued, tired and felt that I was losing my mojo for running. Anyway fortunatly for me I had entered the Devil of the Highlands 43 mile race from Tyndrum to Fort William in June this year. I just wanted to finish it and wasnt really bothered about my time or place. I had never ran over 28 miles so it came as a big surprise to come in 4th overall. My mojo was back. I had found something new. Ultra Marathon running.
Only one thing stopped me immediately going back into full training again. I was getting married and so I have been ticking along for the last few months running twice a week and going hillwalking.
So 3 weeks married and it was back to training, and to start with it would be the Glasgow Half Marathon. This was also symbolic for me as it was the first race that I had ever done and so the start of my running "career" and so this would now be the start again or rebirth.
Anyway back to the half.
I decided to start back a bit in the white section so that I wouldnt feel the need to race off and try to keep up with people I used to be able to keep up with and so I thought that I would take it a bit easier. This worked and I was soon running along feeling really great and starting to overtake some members of my running club and other familiar faces. But soon the lack of long runs took its toll and I could feel that I was struggling. Then a second wind at 8 miles and I managed to keep up with a guy called Kenny from Bela. When I reached 10 miles I thought that I had enough in the tank to go for it to the finish and try to get under 1hr 20 mins. This would be such a result for me after so long not training. But no. The minute I pushed I felt a shooting pain up the back of my leg. My hamstring. Lay off. It went away. Ok push again. Ouch. Lay off. Still ouch. Errm I hope I can finish this. So I limped and spluttered along for the last 3 miles and finished in a time of 1hr 23min 05 secs. I was happy enough with that. But then I found out that Debbie my wife was at the finishing line too. She shouldnt have finished for another 25 mins so something must be wrong. I was worried. I finally got through the finishing area and got to talk to her. She hadnt been feeling well for the last couple of days and had struggled today because of it and pulled out after 6 miles. I felt really bad because this was her first day back to training too. But she is a brave wee soldier and she will be fine.
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