Calf injury is very angry with me taking part in the VLM

After my first marathon last year I experienced elation, tiredness and constant hunger! It was no surprise to me after the Virgin London Marathon that these sensations would re-appear. An extra challenge was presented to me "the morning after" to navigate the tube and get a train to Slough.
The training course I spent the next three days on was interesting but not helped by the constant tiredness and aching legs, it was great however to eat like a pig all week!
Upon my return to home late on Wednesday I emptied my case to discover in horror my Brooks Ravenna 2's that had dutifully got me round the VLM had not made it back with me :( I must have left them behind when changing into my Adidas training shoes, so someone is now either the happy owner of a pair of shoes with just 96 miles on the clock... or they have been blown up by the police as a suspicious un-attended bag!

By Thursday my legs had eased up and blisters largely gone, so I strapped my angry calf up and headed up to the club to take my group out for a run. But alas my calf started giving me grief almost straight away and 2 miles in my knee was in agony. One of the runners, Lisa had a stitch (to which we can find no reason why they keep happening) and we walked back to the club whilst the rest of the group finished the run.

So as a good coach would tell me "give running a break" I have to take recovery as the only option to ensure the injury heals. Therefore the next race in my diary is out of bounds (Chester Half Marathon) though I will be there with the family to enjoy the race as a spectator.

I am now booked onto the sports first aider course with the St Johns ambulance folks on the 6th May so Chester will be my first club race as "Coach" complete with first aid bag!

I have yet to get a photo from the race, there are plenty on the marathonfoto website but at £50 for one digital download or £75 for all all them that is daylight robbery... so here is a picture of my time stuck to the fridge-freezer instead!

So for the next few weeks it will be a case of cross training and start the "New Me" working on my core, swimming and get this on Friday I started the http://www.hundredpushups.com app in the iPhone. So come the Robin Hood Marathon in September I should be a lot fitter, injury free and be able to not necessarily be faster than at London, but be better prepared, run more even paced and finish without loosing my shoes!

Saturday parkrun

Oldham parkrun had a good turnout despite a number of our regular runners on holiday... or warm weather training as I call it! In the mornings my calf is at its angriest so strapped it up and got their early with Stephen and enjoyed a kick about with the football. Jason Chapman from Sweatshop was back this week and had the timer role whilst Stephen did both marshalling points (Involved a bit of running for him!).

Simon Lake doubled up as registration and photographer, he took loads of great photos and here you can see me doing the  race brief... calf neatly tied up!

I truly relaxing Easter Sunday with no long run to do... something inside would rather a LSR for sure :(

Have a good week

Regards

Mark K