run, dad, run

2hr24 / 25km / 28ctl

54 days until parental leave

I’m jogging easily along a boardwalk beside a calm inlet, but today I’m mostly thinking about injuries.

The locals, a healthy community of all ages, clearly have longevity figured out. One guy I pass looks mid 60s and is sporting a hefty six pack. I resist the urge to offer him a high 5.

Each year when I set fitness goals their achievement always comes down to whether I get injured or not. This has impacted both my last two marathons at Gold Coast and Melbourne. That’s blindingly obvious, but never reflects where my energy and focus is applied during those training cycles. With this build it’ll have to be the main objective – get to the start line with my body in a good condition and ready to go.

I’ve got four ongoing issues to balance:

• An Achilles strain, picked up triathlon training and pinged it turning & accelerating in transition. This is more of an acute injury and can turn up if I don’t do a decent warm up.
• Dodgy knees, not really sure what exactly causes this but it’s my most long term issue, first appearing when completing the 1000 mile LEJOG cycle. This one returns when short term volumes lift dramatically, either through training load or one off long distance events.
• ITB which presents as pain in my glute or hip and I assume is partially the cause of the knee issues. This one always seems to hover around.
• Plantar fasciitis, which has never been a huge worry but turns up when the intensities start lifting and is worsened by certain shoes or hard roads.

With those in mind this cycle needs to have a focus on slow volume increases, reigning in intensities when needed, stretching and strength supplementary work, proper warm ups, switching shoes. There will definitely be an increase in how often I use the treadmill, as well as dialling back sessions quickly when needed.

My approach to training is that you have to, more often than not, be the person that ignores pain or discomfort when it presents. That’s something instilled through the team environment of rowing – where whoever can hold their hand in the fire for longer wins. However I think it’s done me a disservice as I’ve aged and is now a restrictive to my goals. Going forwards I’ll take a much more cautious approach.

I’m currently in the Gold Coast and getting a few runs in around Christmas meals and family time. 3 runs completed, in stunning beach locations at Coolangatta, Kingscliff and Kirra. At Kirra parkrun I had a shocker with my watch GPS due to manual time zones near the NSW/Queensland border. One minute I was at 3:00/km the next I was standing still then flying across Tweed to a different location. Something to remember for the GC marathon. Knee is niggling a little so will keep an eye out on it.

At parkrun I set a baseline 5k at 19.59 which will be the starter for my training paces in a few weeks. I’ll repeat this every 4 weeks or so.