Dealing with Injury

Unfortunately I follow my post-Olympic blog entry (admittedly some time ago now) with details of a somewhat frustration period since the games. Having not raced since the Olympics and spending much of my training time cross training rather than running.  Since getting back into things after my break I started to notice some discomfort in my left adductor. First this this was thought to be an adductor strain but after cutting back training for a number of weeks without any improvement in my symptoms I then had an MRI scan which revealed a stress response to my pubis bone… I will let you Google where that is! The upshot of the diagnoses meant 5 weeks of no running, my longest period of no running to date having been fortunate over the years to not suffer with many enforced breaks away from the sport.  I guess I should have been pleased this sort of injury did not happen a few months earlier as it would have almost certainly ended my Olympic dream and whilst of course on reflection I am, like most athletes I am sure this was not my initial reaction. The most difficult and frustrating thing about this was that following the Games in London I found my appetite for training and competition to be quite high but I was not able to put this to good use at least that’s how it felt initially. I remember a friend telling me about athletes and support staff from other sports who had suffered with depression after the Olympics in Beijing, simply from going from such an all-consuming goal and then having nothing to focus on once the games were over. I guess whilst my aspirations in London were somewhat modest in comparison to our many gold medallists I still decided earlier in the year that I would set myself a few short to medium term targets to avoid such things in the aftermath. These of course those have now since changed due to the injury but I have goals none-the-less and it has help keep me sane through can otherwise be monotonous cross training sessions.

Certainly not being able to race for so long has been difficult, as whilst over the last couple of years I haven’t raced as often as some this has still been my longest period without a race of any kind. I have been hitting the cross training fairly hard though, with two daily sessions involving a mixture of the cross trainer, aqua jogging and also my conditioning work. The idea at the moment is to strengthen my adductor and overall core conditioning to prevent anything re-surfacing. I have started building my running up again, it’s been  quite a slow process but I am getting there and I seem to be making steady progress, I actually had my first pain free run the other day its funny how the little things create such excitment.  My immediate focus at the stage is simply to continue my progress with the rehab and building the running up again. I also think my general core conditioning is probably as strong as it’s been for some time which is encouraging. I have actually put a bit of weight on... perhaps it's muscles or maybe that's just wishful thinking on the skinny distance runners part but having gone from 4 to 5% bodyfat I won't loose too much sleep over it.

So what now, well I still have ambitious goals for 2013, granted the start to my racing maybe delayed a little but I want to run PB’s over a range of distances. I am still somewhat embarrassed by my modest times over the like of 10k and the half marathon and running a faster marathon time remains on the agenda with an autumn option likely.

Anyway Happy New Year folks, hears to working hard in order to achieve those 2013 goals... lets face it nothing worth having was ever easy was it.