Marathon - Done. What Next?

Well, there's now a big fat tick next to "Marathon" in the list of things to do at least once in this life.

So where to go from there, eh? That was the big question.

In my mind, I had thought to have a few weeks of gentle rest, then start thinking about improving my speed, particularly over 10K and half mara distances. And maybe even think about doing another marathon at some point.

So, I took a couple of weeks off. Had a very gentle 4mile jog the weekend after the mara, then slobbed again for a week. Ate whatever the hell I wanted, regained a little bit of weight, and generally chilled.

Two weeks after the marathon was the Market Drayton Muller 10K. This is a great race, and if you're a runner and you've never done it, I highly recommend it - if only for the goody pack at the end! It is organised by the Muller running club (yep, thems that makes the yoghurts) and every runner gets a "free tray of Muller product" at the end of the race. Which usually equates to twelve Muller corners. This is in addition to the usual goody stuff - as it emerged this year, no medal, but they had poured thier funds into a jolly nice little rucksack instead. Can't say fairer than that.

Anyway, we headed up to Shropshire (Vixx decided to enter too, which was cool as I'm more used to being Billy-No-Mates on race days!). It was a lovely day, and thankfully for running conditions, the sun was passing behind clouds intermittently to give us some reprieve from the heat.

However, about 3miles in, I became acutely aware that this wasn't going to be my day. My left knee, which had started to give me some gyp laterally during the last few miles of the marathon, started to hurt again. When it had initially occurred during the marathon, I had put it down to simple long-run joint aches, although I'd not really had lateral knee pain before - it had usually been medial. But now it began to be quite acutely sore, and causing me some infra-patellar pain too - necessitating a more run-walk strategy. I'd set out that day with a more philosophical attitude to this race, anyway; if a PB was on, I'd go for it, but if not, I'd back off and just enjoy it. Well, I couldn't say I was really enjoying it, cos that knee stung like h*ll, but hey, it was a nice day and I still came in under the hour.

I thought the pain would ease after a night's sleep, but no. Not being particularly sports-medicine minded, I spent most of Monday trying to figure out exactly what structure was in that area of my knee to make so incredibly tender. A quick hunt in the anatomy text book revealed the answer in a very much "D'oh!" fashion. Durrr, it was my ilio-tibial band.

For those of you not much in the know, Iliotibial Band Syndrome is otherwise known as Runner's Knee and tends to be a result of sudden increases in training mileage. Well, that ticks all the boxes - due to a couple of training breaks I had imposed upon me by snow and viral grot, I'd had to accelerate up the mileage increases needed for the marathon over a shorter period than usual. I just thank my lucky stars that it happened after the marathon and not before it.

So, thanks to a good bit of guidance involving rolling pins, ice and stretching, it's now sorted itself out and stood up to a good 4-miler the other night. And I now have a new goal.

Two things happened within the space of a few days last week:
1) On the Tuesday, I had an email saying the entries for the Birmingham Half mara would be opening the following day. Rapid-fire text messages followed the next morning, and Vixx and I are now entered (more on this in a later post). Not so exciting, as this is something I've already done, although I will be looking to improve my half mara PB - especially as they've changed the course to make it flatter this year.

2) I was idly browsing Conny's photos on Facebook of her first tri last year. The swim bit was in a swimming pool. I happened to make the comment "Oooh now that's more like it, I could do a pool swim. Not that I am saying I would do a tri, you understand". In response to that, I was cunningly given the link to the event website. It's a sprint tri. 500m swim, 20K bike ride, 5k run. This bounced around in my head for a few days. "Ooooh," said my brain, "those distances are manageable. You could do that, you could". Then, on Friday night, having churned out a whole load of excuses and foiled them all, I entered. Not exactly cheap, but hey, it should be a laugh, and I get to be a Trainee Lady Pirate* for the day, having been promised use of Conny's Monaco Pirate top if I entered :)


So, I appear to have answered my own question there. Thanks, Conny :) Time to get on that bike, it would seem!


*Pirates: Runner's World Forum members who do Triathlons. Short for Pirate Ship of Fools (PSOF).