The cover photo for this Blog post is from this morning after I completed a 5mile run in just over 37 mins. To say I was happy out would be an understatement. Towards the end of last week back had started to feel better and pain had started to subside. Tested the waters very cautiously on Friday with a 5 min walk followed by 2 very easy miles running and a further 5 min walk and apart from feeling unfit everything felt fine. Have just gradually increased things over the last few days following a similar format of 5 mins walk before and after each run:
Saturday: 3.05 miles - 22.51
Sunday: 4.12 miles – 30.29
Monday: 5.01 miles – 37.01
Today’s run got me thinking about how its good to enjoy the little wins and battles. A few weeks ago if you had of told me I’d be grinning from ear to ear after a 5 mile run in 37 mins I’d of said you’re mad but honestly felt as happy and satisfied as I did when I ran a 10k time trial a few weeks ago (although that might be down to being absolutely bollixed after the 10k). As I said I think its important to enjoy the little wins and focus on short term goals. My goal over the last week was to get back running and feeling comfortable and enjoying getting out there getting after it and box is ticked in that regard. I think too often we all focus on the long term and don’t focus on the now and what we can currently do right now and what is achievable. By thinking long term you think of the end result and often get demoralised as your end goal seems out of reach and unattainable, but you need to think of the little building blocks that build on top of each other and focus on one block at a time!
Plan is to keep volume relatively low of the next week or so just to make sure I don’t trigger anything. In with Dara tomorrow for another physio appointment just to make sure all is good and we’ll go from there! In total I lost about 2 weeks of running but usually after a week or so of easy running my fitness tends to come back fairly quickly and to be honest don’t think I’ve lost too much fitness anyway.
Buzzing to get back into normal training after watching the European Indoors over the weekend. How great was it to have a live athletics championship on TV. Although I do really enjoy watching a 2 hour grand prix meet nothing really beats a full championship with heats and finals and drama galore especially indoors. Been lucky to have travelled to a few major championships over the years as a spectator but this weekend definitely whetted the appetite to go to more. One thing that I feel as though is always missing when watching on TV as opposed to being in the stadium is you don’t get the feeling for the drama and spectacle of the field events especially the High Jump and Pole Vault. I always tend to get more excited in advance of a championship with the track events but always surprise myself at how enveloping a top class field event really is.
Regarding the Irish performances I thought it was a good showing with many performing to their ability and beyond. I know some will say well there were no medals to show for and athletics really is gauged on winning medals but in the past Ireland would of maybe nicked a medal or 2 but that would paper over the cracks with all other performances not being maybe up to scratch. In my opinion by having a number of finalists and athletes running PBs in a major championship this will only increase the base of the pyramid and that means the likelihood of in the future having more outliers who can win medals is greater!
Hope everyone’s running is going well and your enjoying getting out in the slightly better weather conditions we’re currently having 😊
Have a great week folks😊
Noel
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