Roll on 2009

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging for a week.

This is because I'm injured, and I didn't know what to say. I've been struggling to overcome my knee injury for some weeks now, and every time it seems to be getting better, another bit gets worse.

After my 33 mile bike ride last weekend, I felt tired. But then 2½ hours of exercise does that, doesn't it?
On Monday I ached, but that was to be expected too. I skipped swimming as I still felt bunged up and headachey.
On Tuesday my knee hurt again, mostly walking downstairs, but also if I bent it too quickly, or if I'd been sitting in the same position too long and tried to move it.
By Wednesday I'd resorted to using the lift at work to avoid the pain brought on by the stairs. Back to the physio. With only a few weeks to go, and it seeming like the only way to resolve my knee problem is to completely rest it from all exercise, I discussed pulling out of the marathon and my physio agreed. There was a lot of spasm in a muscle behind the knee called piriformis, which was causing a clicking sound when I bent my knee.

On Thursday I contacted the VRH charity to find out if it's possible to defer my place to next year. Having already raised £519 online, I'm keen as ever to go ahead and run the marathon, even if I won't be able to do it this year. Anyone who has a ballot entry to the marathon can automatically defer their place until the following year (as long as they haven't already carried it over from the previous year). Places such as mine on a Golden Bond entry for a charity, however, are at the discretion of the charity. They said they'd find out and let me know.

So I had a weekend of uncertainty. My knee was (and still is) hurting a bit, though less so than last week. I'd decided that it wouldn't matter if I couldn't do the London Marathon this year, or even next. I would enter myself, or enter another marathon in order to earn the money I've already raised for VRH. I've come this far in training, so I'm not giving up now. Well not for good anyway. I'll have to give up for a short time to give my knee a chance to get better.

So the upshot of this is that the bad news is that I won't be running the 2008 London Marathon. The good news is that VRH have agreed that I can run for them next year! I can now stop worrying, and start getting fit again, and now have 12 months to get prepared for this challenge!

The long term solution for my knee problem is to alter the way that I run, so as not to put too much stress on the muscles. This will require a bespoke insole for my running shoes, to prevent my feet from over-pronating. If this doesn't work out, and it transpires that I'll never make it as a long distance runner, then I will find another challenge instead. Something like cycling from home to London (71 miles avoiding the M4).

I'll post again here in a week or two when I know when I'll be back in training, so please keep visiting to find out how I'm getting on.