I'm sat here tonight watching '28 Weeks Later' and playing some online poker and my legs are quite destroyed. This weekend i've really put them through a lot. On Saturday I ran in an event called the Hambledon Horseplay in Oxfordshire. I was working down there promoting Ronhill products and thought I would get involved. It was very much like the tough guy / Hellrunner but started on a showground and involved a lot of horse jumps before heading out on to the hills through rivers, ponds, bushes etc. It also started at 6pm so the last 30 mins were in the dark with my headtorch. I won the event and then after helping out post event I eventually arrived back in Manchester at 2:30am. Woke up today to watch the Wilmslow half marathon with Dave Anderson and Andy Cain on the bikes (my housemate and Brother were 4th and 6th respectively) and then cycled another 3 hours in the peaks with Anderson. My legs now feel like they have been hit repeatedly with a sledge hammer! I'm running in the Isle of Man Easter Festival next weekend which involves 3 races in 3 days and ussually a lot of drinking including a 13 mile run taking in 10 pubs after the Saturday race so I need to take it fairly easy between now and friday! Here is a summary of this weeks training:
Mon: 8 miles 56 mins on own
Tue: 12 miles 1hr19 with dave and Pete Riley
Weds: 5 x 800m with 400m jog recovery 2:19, 2:17, 2:17, 2:15, 2:15 (7 miles total)
Thurs: 9 miles 62 mins
Fri: 6 miles 42 mins
Sat: 8 miles including Hambledon Horseplay event 49:53 (1st)
Sun: 6o miles cycle with Dave Anderson
Total: 50 miles running + 60 miles bike
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Stormin's Blog - Introduction
Welcome to my blog. For the past couple of years I have been posting my training logs on www.eightlane.com and many of you who know me already may have read these. For those of you that don't i'll give you a quick introduction to my history and recent activity as an elite runner.
I was first introduced to running by my dad when I was 8 years old and I have now been running for my club Altrincham & District Athletics Club for over 20 years. My dad was a succesful runner himself having competed in the Montreal Olympic Marathon and having set a world record for 50km Track run (2:48:06) on our own cinder track at Timperley, Altrincham in June 1980, a record that still stands to this day. For many years I was a very average runner but as I increased my training load I steadily improved and got my first International vest at 18 years old as a fell runner competing for England in the Junior Home International.
After a good few years of training (and excessive drinking / social life may I add!) whilst I was doing my degree at Sheffield Hallam University I accepted a scholarship at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. I attribute a lot of my improvements as a runner to the 2 years I spent at Tulsa and I wished I would have known about the possibility of US athletic scholarships 3 years earlier. When I returned from Tulsa I had a lot of success on both the Mountain Running scene and on the Track /Road setting personal bests for 10k (29:36) and half marathon (65:54).
For the past 4 years I have really struggled with injury. In July 2006 when I was competing in Europe in Mountain races I picked up an injury called Plantar Fasciitus which I have not been able to get rid of. I have seen numerous physio's over the past 4 years, spent almost £4000 on physio / podiatry, had steroid injections in my foot, and tried resting for months at a time. In 2008 I took up Triathlon and spent most of my training hours in the pool or on the bike. In 2009 I decided to try and make a comeback as a runner and despite running many 90-100 mile weeks in excrutiating pain and limping around a lot of my training I did manage to get in to better shape than ever and even ran a personal best of 14:06 on the track for 5km.
Now in 2010 I am currently making yet another comeback. In early October 2009 the pain in my foot had become so excrutiating I had to stop running. I bought a cross trainer and used this until early December when after a bout of Swine Flu I became a bit lazy. For a few months I did almost no training at all and had at one point decided to give up completely. When I did try running again I tore my calf muscle. With the help of the team at Worsley Physio Clinic (Athlete Matters) I am now running almost pain free again. Surprisingly the pain in my plantar fascii is currently very mild and only evident after and not during training. I hope this continues to improve as I work my way back to full fitness. I am currently on week 3 of comeback training and have already raced at the Northern 12 Stage Relays clocking 14:58 for a leg of just under 5km (I would have been happy with 16 mins!). On my blog I will try and post my weekly training diary starting at the end of this week. I am hoping to now do a lot of my training with my brother and our housemate Matt Bond who are both hoping for fast times (around 65 mins) at the Wilmslow Half Marathon this weekend.
I hope you enjoy reading my blog and my weekly training diary. If you have any questions please fire away!
I was first introduced to running by my dad when I was 8 years old and I have now been running for my club Altrincham & District Athletics Club for over 20 years. My dad was a succesful runner himself having competed in the Montreal Olympic Marathon and having set a world record for 50km Track run (2:48:06) on our own cinder track at Timperley, Altrincham in June 1980, a record that still stands to this day. For many years I was a very average runner but as I increased my training load I steadily improved and got my first International vest at 18 years old as a fell runner competing for England in the Junior Home International.
After a good few years of training (and excessive drinking / social life may I add!) whilst I was doing my degree at Sheffield Hallam University I accepted a scholarship at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. I attribute a lot of my improvements as a runner to the 2 years I spent at Tulsa and I wished I would have known about the possibility of US athletic scholarships 3 years earlier. When I returned from Tulsa I had a lot of success on both the Mountain Running scene and on the Track /Road setting personal bests for 10k (29:36) and half marathon (65:54).
For the past 4 years I have really struggled with injury. In July 2006 when I was competing in Europe in Mountain races I picked up an injury called Plantar Fasciitus which I have not been able to get rid of. I have seen numerous physio's over the past 4 years, spent almost £4000 on physio / podiatry, had steroid injections in my foot, and tried resting for months at a time. In 2008 I took up Triathlon and spent most of my training hours in the pool or on the bike. In 2009 I decided to try and make a comeback as a runner and despite running many 90-100 mile weeks in excrutiating pain and limping around a lot of my training I did manage to get in to better shape than ever and even ran a personal best of 14:06 on the track for 5km.
Now in 2010 I am currently making yet another comeback. In early October 2009 the pain in my foot had become so excrutiating I had to stop running. I bought a cross trainer and used this until early December when after a bout of Swine Flu I became a bit lazy. For a few months I did almost no training at all and had at one point decided to give up completely. When I did try running again I tore my calf muscle. With the help of the team at Worsley Physio Clinic (Athlete Matters) I am now running almost pain free again. Surprisingly the pain in my plantar fascii is currently very mild and only evident after and not during training. I hope this continues to improve as I work my way back to full fitness. I am currently on week 3 of comeback training and have already raced at the Northern 12 Stage Relays clocking 14:58 for a leg of just under 5km (I would have been happy with 16 mins!). On my blog I will try and post my weekly training diary starting at the end of this week. I am hoping to now do a lot of my training with my brother and our housemate Matt Bond who are both hoping for fast times (around 65 mins) at the Wilmslow Half Marathon this weekend.
I hope you enjoy reading my blog and my weekly training diary. If you have any questions please fire away!
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