Coping with injury and adjustments

Ok so what the hell happened the last 5 weeks! My training had been going well up until this point, had a fantastic race season and had been injury free for the past 18 months. I was building into my last 2 races of the season, Sliverstone Half, and Lincoln 10k, It was the final week of my training block, so taper week, then boom, on a mid week long run, felt pain on the inside of my right ankle, had to abandon the run and walk home for 2 miles ! Luckily it was a nice day. But didn’t panic just decided to rest up before the race, and booked in to see my physio. The pain wasn’t going away, and I felt a hot spot on the bone on the shine 😞. Suspected stress fracture, so went to A&E to get X rayed, but got the all clear 🤷‍♂️, but had to pull out of the Half Marathon coming up on the Sunday. So focused efforts to see if I could get to the start line of the 10k, which was 3 weeks after.

So recovery process starts, full week off, no running, so out comes the bike, put in the miles on bike, as well as strength and conditioning sessions in the gym, making sure nothing irritated it. I even went and tried underwater treadmill running, which was a fantastic experience, a company in Rutland called Inspire2tri, fantastic facility! After that tried a run, it was ok, tight but manageable! As soon as i put any pace on it, it felt horrible 😞, so had to face facts and pull out of the 10k

Now there’s no pressure, focused on recovery and build into the winter. So abandon running, and bike and gym. I have to say tho, working through this injury has been very tough mentally, seeing everyone you no running well, racing well and just smashing there training, so pulled away from social media and just focused on me. Especially when running plays a massive part of your life, so switching off from going out to run was tough, trying to stay positive and making plans for races in the new year. I’ve learned over the years with injuries to listen to your body, there was a point where I had a few days of it feeling really good, no pain, no hot spots, soooo, I risked it and went out, it felt great, a little tight at the start but that soon went. As soon as I got in I stuck my foot in a ice bucket, ( only went out for 2 miles tho, did that for 2 days) during the week I put some pace into a easy run, so did a few short reps ( 30sec reps) in the middle of a easy run, and again felt great. Managed a long run of 12 miles ( all tho didn’t fuel right for it so felt rubbish lol) but on the hole managed a 31 mile week…. This was such a massive relief and now can build into winter and hopefully get stronger into races next year….