Two years later...

Well, it's been over two years since my last post. As my friends and family will know all too well (by virtue of my incessant whining), I have been battling with some very persistent and debilitating injuries, but finally I'm getting back to a point where I can run with some regularity, and so I would like to revive the old blog. I managed to run this year's Cardiff Half Marathon in a reasonably respectable time of 1:41 and am now hoping to build (sensibly!) on that, starting with the Lliswerry 8 in January and the Kerzerslauf (Switzerland) in March.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It's quite clear to me now that I lost my sense of perspective, trained through injury and overloaded various parts of my body. Of most concern was the inside of my left ankle. Diagnoses varied from the achilles tendon to the tibialis posterior nerve and treatment from steroid injections to pure and simple rest. And it is the latter which has proved most crucial. I have ditched my orthoses altogether, as I'm convinced they were instrumental in my ankle nightmare. They were originally intended to treat chronic shin splints, about which I blogged here. But as I feared, they were too much of a quick fix, a 'silver bullet'. In truth, while my shin splints cleared up, the overloading issue just resurfaced elsewhere.

However, during my numerous consultations with physios, podiatrists and - most of all - an ankle specialist, I did learn something important about myself: I'm not built to run marathons. The arthritis in my big toe joints prevents my feet from fully pronating when I run, or indeed walk, and the resulting supination (or underpronation) overloads various muscles and tendons in my lower legs, chief among which the tibialis posterior muscle. In fact, I was rather grimly told to 'run as much as I can while I can'! I sulked about this for a while, wondering why some people could run 80 miles per week without breaking down. Then I snapped out of it and realised how lucky I am, for the enjoyment that I have had - and continue to have - from running.

So here I am, about to re-launch my running 'career' under a new motto: everything in moderation. Of course, that doesn't rule out cross-training ;-)