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!