Being forced to take a detour from the planned route!
So, I've avoided writing for the past couple of weeks. My last blog, which whilst fairly brief, was so very upbeat. It was the first time in a couple of months where I was actually enjoying my running again. The legs had started to feel recovered and I was willing Leicester City Marathon on. In what was always going to be a year of 'highs and lows' of my running, I had definitely found myself climbing back up the hill onto a high again. Such a good feeling!Then life and reality kicked in again, with a vengeance! The difficult term, increased working hours and life pressures had started to take their toll. I love my job, my children and my life and always knew that the marathon challenge given my circumstances was going to have its pitfalls and prove to be far more a challenge than what most people would anticipate. I recall talking through my circumstances back in February when I first started blogging and felt that it was these very same reasons (demanding job, single mum, large family etc) that simply added more value to my running challenge for the year. Perhaps I hadn't anticipated the severity and impact of such a personal task for the year.
Today, I am 42 weeks into my 48 week training plan. I should be sat here tonight simply beaming having completed marathon number 5 of the year. I should have driven home tonight, sore and aching after running all 26.2 miles of the Leicester City Marathon. I knew my running wasn't as strong as it was back in May but it was certainly stronger, or rather I felt stronger, than I had 6 weeks ago at Wolverhampton. The past two weeks however have served to create a total about turn on the training and marathon front - if only for now. Having experienced so many minor niggles on the health front over the past couple of weeks: lethargy, pins and needles, breathlessness, nausea, dizziness, sore throat to name but a few, I finally conceded and visited the doctor. (If the truth be known, I think I'd grown tolerant to almost all of the above over the past couple of months but facing a marathon today and a work trip to China next week meant that I wasn't prepared to leave my sore throat go unchecked any longer.) A couple of blood tests later and I'm suddenly diagnosed with Chronic Anaemia. That in itself isn't the end of the world rather than my lack of iron and B12 seems unexplained - it's certainly not due to a poor diet. Given my lethargy and rapid heartbeat/breathlessness when walking up the stairs, the doc said that I shouldn't be running today. I'm told that endurance athletes are more susceptible to anaemia although I thought I'd been careful in terms of nutrients and food intake this year. Either way, I'm currently facing a road block and a diversion sign!
Three weeks ago, I was counting down the days until marathon number 5; today I'm counting my woes. Actually, I'd spent the best part of the week resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn't be competing today so busied myself with my children instead. To be fair, I've felt incredibly tired, aching and nauseous so the thought of running at all brought no hankering or sense of regret. I did run 5 miles on Friday night which felt slow but good - I'm determined to not lose all of my fitness over the next couple of weeks whilst I'm in the recovery process but it's brought about a reassessment of my training plans and forced a shift in the goal posts. Today was supposed to be marathon number 5 - a fairly gentle marathon with a short recovery and then counting down to the big one. The target event of the Hereward Relay Challenge as a 40 mile ultra race is the one event that my year has been gearing towards.
I leave for China on Saturday with work so will be spending this week getting ahead in terms of work but also trying to reconfigure my running agenda - I shall wait outcomes of tests and appointments first so that I have a foundation on which to build. As I sign off tonight, it is for the first time in 42 weeks that I no longer have a clear plan. I'm now looking forward to getting better and deciding where exactly the goal posts will be moved to.
I'm far from ready to finish... merely facing another hurdle in a long year!
