Road to Recovery & Physical v's Mental

Sunday Afternoon. I have just got back from the gym. The immense frustration I have been feeling since the 4th December are starting to turn into feeling of hope, Wednesday I ran 6Km, Thursday 7km, Saturday 10km and today 17km, it took me 1:20, a long way off the 1:19 half marathon times I was putting down before Injury but at least I can run.

My housemate asked at what point I would make a decision to pull out, to which I replied, no chance. The frustration is not about whether I will make it to the Sahara but if I would be able to test myself but from a position of straight. Ok, I only singed up in November, whereas most people entering plan it for years. I had never heard of the Marathon Des Sables until September, but I had just come off the back of the Berlin marathon and up until I gave up rowing in April I had trained 11 times a week for the last 5 years.

For several years now, I have really wanted to understand why in sport I get almost to the end and then break down, rowing in a 2k ergo test I would fall off at 200m to go, marathon running normally happens at mile 25. Is this a physical or mental weakness. Personally I really don’t know. is it that I push myself so hard that by the time I get to the final bit I just physically have nothing at all left, or is it a mental block. there is no question that I feared failure and if it is going badly from the off, I have been known to pull out once or twice, I think I have managed to overcome that now, simple changed can change the mind set, odd but instead of responding the question "how are you" with "not too bad" I now respond with positive words, why use a negative word to describe a positive emotion. 

 After most 2k tests I was physically sick and after every marathon I have run I have been taken to the medical tent. London marathon 09, I hit the first finish matt then the next thing I knew I woke up with a drip, legs in the air, no jokes please, ice in my groin and a thermometer in a rather less than pleasant place. I have lost my target time every time in that last mile or so, no one would be in a good place at mile 25, but can I just push to the end at pace. Berlin, I think I could have got close to 2:45 if I had not fallen off. Can you push yourself genuinely push yourself when there is absolutely nothing left in the tank - I think you can, I just need to find out how, and I hope to find this running the marathon Des Sables.

I have posted a few things about what has been wrong with my ankle and non of myself diagnosis turned out to be the actual problem. Having never had a sports injury before, well apart from flying off my bike the week before Henley (does not count because I could see the physical mess it caused) I have never understood the importance of a physio. I do now. It turns out that it is actually damage to my Common Peroneal Nerve (branch of the Syatic Nerve), most probably at the knee form when I fell out of the taxi. It has caused inflammation in the tissue surrounding the nerve and causing pain in the bonny bit of my ankle. I have read a few people posting about similar pain but the GP's have never worked out what it was and they have gone on. My GP told me I had soft tissue damage and you cannot get a stress fracture from running (he has never heard of shin splints it seems). The fact he said that made me realise he had no idea what he was talking about and self referred to a Physio, I have seen so much progress in the last 2 weeks it is untrue. Lesson: anything muscular skeletal, use a physio not a GP (a few acceptations, but mostly holds true), simple lesson but one that took me weeks to learn.