After all my good intentions in my New Year’s post for my plans for the year, I find myself having to reduce my mileage rather than increase it and avoid hills!  Basically things haven’t been right since before my October marathon in Dublin. Running didn’t feel good and my legs always felt stiff. I kinda thought it was just a bad stage, a bit of dehydration etc etc but I let slip at the weekend that my knees are always sore the day after running and especially when I’m going up/down stairs. So I was told in no uncertain terms to stop doing my ostrich impression (i.e. remove head from sand!) and face facts – at the moment I feel like I’m about 70, flexibility is zilch, calves are tight, knees are sore – okay shoot me now. I definitely won’t be passing the MOT.

So I need to sort this out – and marathon training is probably not the way to go about it. I’ve identified the exercises and stretching regime I need to follow. I will have to keep my runs shorter and avoid too many hills for the time being. I may concentrate on half marathons later on in the year but I shall wait and see how things go.

It all did however make me realise how much I would miss running if I couldn’t do it. I actually felt a bit panicked at the thought that maybe I wouldn’t be able to run marathons any more. So this is the incentive I need to keep being disciplined with the exercises. Will keep you posted on progress – hold off the firing squad for just a bit yet!

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