I’m trying to maintain a routine of updating where I’m at with the “training plan” I’m following courtesy of Garmin.

(Let’s just pretend that bit is going well and that I’m not a month out of date or anything.)

It’s in inverted commas because it’s less about following a plan and more trying to see what Garmin wants to suggest and how my body handles those suggestions. And we’ve already realised that if Garmin wants me to do a sprint session, it writes me off for a few weeks afterwards and therefore I’m minded to avoid such sessions in the near future at least. Perhaps if I can get myself to a level of vague fitness it’s something to consider. But the adage of ‘listen to your body’ has never been stronger at the time in my life where my body is seemingly hellbent on falling apart.

My last update took me to the end of my holiday. On the coach trip home a bloke sat behind me coughing and spluttering for the best part of 5 hours and so it wasn’t a huge surprise to wake up 24 hours later full of a cold.

Back to the old routine

It was also a bit of a shock to the system as I intended to get along to the various trail running commitments I had in the diary. Prior to the holiday work got in the way of me leading at Lyme Runners for a few weeks (plus various twinges caused by the aforementioned sprints session making this not a good idea). It’s safe to say that with a heavy cold, plus having had 5 weeks away from the trails, I found this tough! Fortunately the cold subsided almost as quickly as it arrived (although not before my VO2 max figure dropped back from its recent high) and at least I felt I could run. From a breathing point of view anyway.

The truth is that my troublesome Haglunds bump on my right foot had taken umbrage at being dragged around the trails and started complaining afresh. A sport massage helped but that was only temporary and whilst I should have had my physio follow-up appointment the week after I got back home, they cancelled it, meaning my next appointment is at the end of August. Very frustrating.

Anyway, with the 3 trail runs, plus a couple of road training runs in that first week I managed 27.3 miles (14.3 trail miles and 13 road miles). One was an ‘easy’ pace whereas the other was a threshold run, something that did not come very easily that day as it was hot and an undulating route. I got it done but had to forget what my ‘old’ threshold pace might have been!!!

Another week goes by

The second week was actually pretty consistent totalling 28 miles (16 trail miles and 12 road miles). Aside from the foot aching almost permanently, and the fact that I’m not really sleeping very well at the moment (rare Manchester warm spell) the running has begun to feel a little less difficult. The VO2 max returned to it’s higher figure (no surprise now being cold free) and Garmin has spent most of this time telling me I’m “maintaining” my fitness, due to the poor recovery (a consequence of rats’ all sleep).

I took the longer run at a slightly more aggressive pace than I might have done. Throughout the Garmin plan the runs have either been ‘easy’ or ‘eyes out’ and I felt I wanted to see if I could maintain a slightly faster pace for a 9 mile run (which was broken up as I was running between work jobs). It went reasonably OK although the combination of the hill runs earlier in the week plus this made for a very achy foot.

So it’s felt like a step in the right direction, but offset with the problems with the foot and sleep. The latter I’m sure will sort itself once the Manchester weather returns to its usual drizzle and greyness, but I’m struggling to make progress with what can be done about the foot. Or if it’s a degenerative issue that I cannot do much about, save for cutting down the time on the trails. Not something I want to be doing as a trail running coach!