Post Manchester Marathon Week

The week after a marathon; I knew from running the London Marathon last year to expect to be unable to walk properly and to fully hate the sight of stairs. However, last year I was proud to recount my marathon story and wanted to tell everybody passing that I had ran THE London Marathon! As some of you will know, my Manchester Marathon did not go to plan so reliving the marathon over and over again to various people has been tough. People have been extremely kind and supportive though; the responses I received to my race review blog alone were unexpected, overwhelming and humbling. 

Physically, I think I actually hurt less than I did after the London Marathon; instead of the overall body ache I had acute muscle pain in more specific areas. I like to think this is a sign perhaps my legs are a bit stronger than last year!? My working week was busy; on Monday I was straight back into it, on my feet all day playing Street Golf; with the rest of the week including supervising gym sessions, badminton, football, table tennis and more golf (if you had not guessed, I work in sport!) Being lightly active seemed to help keep me supple though, the odd time I found myself sat for a while I soon ceased up!

My 'training' week has looked like this:

MONDAY: I will hold my hands up and say I went to the gym to do my usual Body Pump class. I did not complete it to any level of intensity though; to be honest it was more the fact I did not want to be sat at home mulling over Sunday and welcomed the distraction and to be among friends. 

TUESDAY: Rest Day - the full post marathon tiredness hit me today

WEDNESDAY: back to the gym for some light cycling and then gentle Body Pump again.

THURSDAY: more light cross training and the return of the foam roller. This was the first day I felt able to withstand foam roller work - and it still hurt!

FRIDAY: I attempted a gentle run today, aiming for between 3-5 miles depending on how I felt. I ran a very steady 5k; which gives you some indication of how I felt! My legs were heavy and sluggish, but worst of all my left knee hurt and my right hip hurt even more. This was a bit of a shock as neither had been bothering me all week. With the Lincoln 10k on Sunday I was despondent. In a dream world I wanted this run to be a bit of a back-in-action, confidence booster after Sunday. However I now knew that if I was to run it, I needed to really evaluate my race goal. 

SATURDAY: Rest Day

SUNDAY: The Lincoln 10k - after a bit of a debate I decided to run the race (see start line photo). I did not want to miss my hometown event, and bargained with myself to instead just be realistic about my capabilities. I like to run a 10k in sub 50 minutes (one day a sub 45 min!), but instead I decided anything under an hour would be acceptable under the circumstances - full blog to follow. 

Thank you once again to everyone for your comments, tweets, messages and general support this week - it has very much been appreciated. ​