It's almost time for the Christchurch Marathon already and I'm just about feeling ready for it. But this year I'm only doing the half because I'm still not over the injuries I sustained in last years full marathon.
Since my last post our EQC repairs have gone smoothly and we were able to move back in with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of boxes to unpack. I'm so glad our insurance covered packing, there's no way I'd have wanted us to do that ourselves. But while they pack our stuff for us, we get to unpack it ourselves.
Which brings me to another piece of advice: have a good cleanout before you move out. I even found a couple of dead light bulbs that had been carefully wrapped and placed in a box. I hadn't got around to throwing them out and the packers will just pack everything they see. I also have a room full of stuff to either list on Trademe or drop off to be recycled. Getting rid of that stuff before the move would have saved a bit of effort.
While I'm having a cleanout I'm also taking the opportunity to sort out the garage. I can only do so much of that at a time because I've been filling up the recycling and rubbish bins. I suppose that's a good thing as it means I'm getting rid of lots of junk. It's hard to let go of some of it but I'm being fairly ruthless.
So my rest time after the Run to Remember has still been pretty busy. I'm back on a coached programme which removes the uncertainty of whether I'm doing things right. I've been concentrating on the running, using the Chch Half Marathon as a target. After that it looks like I might be going to do the Melbourne Marathon (well, the half) in October. The timing isn't ideal as the Rolf Prima Half Ironman is just a few weeks later, so I'll do the run as a warmup. I don't want to be too tired for touring anyway.
Now that I'm starting to taper for the race I've been reflecting a bit on the injuries. My stress fracture seems to be sorted; I haven't had any issues from that for a while. Any future speed work is going to be done a bit more conservatively.
The achilles, on the other hand, is still causing me minor trouble nearly a year since last years marathon. It has its good and bad days. It's been a bit sore for the past week so I may have done something to aggravate it but it feels like it's coming right again, slowly. I'm amazed at how well it handled a 10km time trial a few weeks ago; I think that's testament to the really good warmup and cooldown I did. A good cooldown makes a big difference to how it feels in subsequent days so I'd recommend to any runner that you take the time to do a really good cool down. My method is as follows:
I usually stop about 1km from home then use lamp posts: start by jogging two and walking one (easyish jog but walk briskly to keep some load on the calf muscles). After a few sets change to jog 1 / walk 1, then after a few sets of that, jog 1 / walk 2. If there are no lamp posts just estimate using trees, cracks in the path, driveways, whatever is about the right distance away. As you move through the cooldown you ease off the walking pace so you end up walking normally. At about 100m from home I'll just walk the rest of the way in, then I do my stretches.
Because I stop short of home I will adjust my outward leg appropriately - I delay my turning point by about half a km or about 3 mins depending on whether I'm doing a distance-based or time-based run. I usually follow the river so my turning point depends on the next bridge, so the length of my cooldown can vary a little.
Anyway, while I certainly won't be threatening my PB at the half marathon I'll be happy to be going the distance again and if I come out without any new injuries or big flareups I'll be happy. I just want to be ahead of where I was after the marathon last year! It's bloody frustrating because I used to do long runs (15-20km) on the hills every other week and I really miss those.
