Running to Think

Attempt to finish a marathon in Italy (~km 18)

The amount of work and the unexpected happenings of every day life didn't give me much time to write some lines any time soon. Better late than never, of course.
Year 2014 already had the flavour of an intense year full of things to take care of and targets to achieve. And that feeling was not wrong at all.

My running activity is taking the scary pace of the competitive phase. The race of the year is getting closer and closer, being now only two months far. I have been increasing the mileage quite smoothly after the injury to the posterior tibial tendon, fixed in no time (a record in my career).
I started running a bit everywhere between the hills of Sart Tilman and the flat lands around Leuven.
What made week 6 though was an unexpected trip to my hometown in Puglia, south of Italy. Caroline and I found and booked a flight in the time I need to run 1 mile and prepared the luggage in much less than that. It was that fast!
The trip to Italy was amazing. Great food, great places to visit, great weather and, of course, a lot of miles to run.
On the day dedicated to the long distance training I felt so good that I was about to complete a full marathon. Blisters under three toes of the right foot put an end to my attempt at the 40th km.

Attempt to finish a marathon in Italy (~km 20)

I rested a bit only one day, to give some time to the blisters to get dry. Some good taping and special plasters fixed everything in a bit more than one night. Those are the benefits of having a girlfriend on my side who is into sports and nutrition as a profession.

After two days I was back on the road and did some interval training on 1000 meters. The pace was unexpectedly high, around 3'30" per km.
It seems that I can keep the intensity of the schedule after those two weeks in which I was forced to stay at home due to the injury. I can claim that it is true: giving the body some rest regenerates it and prepares it to the worse. Or the best.

I want to believe that everything is fixed with my ankles and I can start running 100% of my schedule, which consists of a gradual increase of milage from 80 to 130 km per week. It's time to take a risk and get prepared for my first ultra marathon in March.

I want to believe that a dream can indeed become true and that I can get to the finish line, on my feet or on my knees. That's something I will find out later.
 
So far, I shouldn't worry.
So far I should listen to what those few positive people around me are suggesting.

Don't worry about a thing. Cos' every little thing gonna be alright. 
Indeed.

The last two weeks have been dedicated to fixing and recovering something that had all the characteristics to be a really bad injury. Without surprise I didn't feel psychologically down or, as many prefer to say, depressed, due to the fact that I couldn't run. I really didn't freak out this time. I rested. I ate more than I am supposed to and I had a great time. I also focussed more on my work at university. I can say that I enjoyed it so much. It was actually divine.
Not that I want to experience it again, of course. An injury is always an injury, after all.
The supervision of my physiotherapist had many invaluable benefits; it not only allowed me to recover in a very short time with respect to the other injuries I got in the past, but it also taught me some lessons I will hardly forget.
Every injury has its own story, and every injury teaches me something I will treasure for myself and my fellow runners.
Stressing the posterior tibial tendon should not be an easy task for an advanced runner. Fixing it and persuading a patient to go back on the road in less than 10 days is everything but easier for a physiotherapist. Injured runners usually want to go back on the road as soon as they can. Sometimes much sooner. Coming from an experience that forced me to stay at home for 6 months, I decided not to take the risk and throw my entire faith in Kathelijn, my physiotherapist. I don't know what will happen in the near future but I have the impression that she was right on many aspects.
I'll keep writing in first person here, even though I am sure that many runners will recognise themselves in my words.

I'm gonna skip week 02, for the reasons I explained in a previous post. I deliberately planned for a break between two intense training blocks. Anyway my body anticipated me with a stressed posterior tibial tendon that needed to be fixed any time soon.
Week 02 has been dedicated to resting, specifically active resting which consisted of a bit of cycling at the gym and loads of repetitions of the exercise you can see in the picture above.
According to my physiotherapist, I could have started running again on monday of week 03, after 7 days of no running. That's exactly what I did.

13/01/2014
20' run and the usual exercises. I headed to the gym a number of times to strengthen some muscular groups that needed some intervention, such as hamstrings and shoulders, upper back and abs. Running, running, running is not exactly what every runner should do. Sometimes we have to plan some workout sessions at the gym or, if you feel more like Rocky Balboa at the steps of a stadium in the suburbs of your city ;)

14/01/2014
30' trail in Sart Tilman in Liege, wearing trail running shoes. This session was characterised by the usual amount of hills and irregular terrain which made it a tough and quite stiff experience. At some point I was scared that the tendon would have collapsed again. I was really waiting for the running session to finish as soon as possible. Not fun, at all.

15/01/2014
Of course my physiotherapist kicked in, discouraging me from running on irregular terrain for at least one more week. She was quite diplomatic by avoiding the more appropriate "you are an idiot" conclusion.
I proceeded as requested by wearing softer road running shoes for about 40', finishing on the track and field. I still felt a bit of stiffness in both the ankles and mainly on the injured tendon. Way less than the day before, though.

16/01/2014
52' easy run with no pain whatsoever and much less stiffness. I felt like I could have been running for 3 hours more, which I didn't do. This time, I would have really deserved to be called an idiot.

17/01/2014
again 50' easy run in the city of Bruxelles. Sore calves and both tibial tendons quite tired are probably the result of a week of training and exercising. I better close week 2 here, with a saturday of rest.

18/01/2014
Rest


I wish I could say "the gipsy is back". But I still don't feel that comfortable.
Yet.