hitting the wall

It hasn't really taken me over three weeks to finish the New York half marathon - I have merely been neglecting the blog, for reasons that will become clear


The New York race was fantastic. As usual, the city was very kind to me, giving me lots of sunshine and no rain on race day. Admittedly it was cold, and my mistake was not to wear enough clothing for the race (I think I have only just managed to repair my chapped knees in the last couple of days) but apart from that, everything went really well.

I managed to knock 4 minutes off last year's time, even including a toilet stop, and feel really confident again about my ability to progress in my running. I know Berlin is a long way off, but it's important to me at my age to not feel like it's all downhill and for that, I am really pleased with my NYC half time.

Since the race though, things have not been so rosy. I managed to run once on the Wednesday after the race, but on the Thursday I pulled a muscle in the top of my foot going downstairs (the shame). I've done this before but on the other foot and I know that rest is the answer, so I just took a week off and tried to stay off the foot as much as possible. On top of that, my work decided it would be a good idea to make me redundant, which proved a fairly time-consuming distraction from foot injuries and running.

It's been a tense time, with lots of downs and very few ups, and there is still a whole mess to sort out and God knows how it will be sorted. However, there are positives that I am trying to take from the situation.

I've decided to go freelance and work from home. This should give me much greater flexibility with my running and mean that it is easier to fit in training, as I won't have to be commuting into London every day. I'll miss the long runs home, but there is nothing to stop me finding another route nearer the time, and it will be two hours of my life I will get back on a daily basis

Secondly, I think it is going to have a really good effect on my weight. I've already lost four pounds on the stress diet, but working from home has already meant lots of healthy lunches and no temptation from the office cake and biscuit mountain. So that should also have a positive contributionn to my marathon training

My first redundancy run, however, has not worked out so well. I headed out midweek around 5.30, after closing the computer down for the day. I was feeling quite stressed by the events of the day, and thought a run would clear my head. By 5.37 I was lying flat on my back about half a mile from home, wondering where my glasses had landed and worried that I had actually lost part of my head, rather than cleared it.

I'm still not sure what happened, whether I tripped over myself or a paving stone, but all of a sudden I was conscious I was heading towards the floor. More importantly, I could see a waist level brick wall heading towards my face, as I hurtled towards someone's front garden wall. My first reaction was to protect my face (vanity = king of the emotions) and somehow managed to twist myself round in a corkscrew fashion so I landed on the wall with the length of my left side. I then ricocheted back off the wall and rolled onto the ground in a Starsky and Hutch style, glasses flying off my face in god knows what direction.

Of course, this had to happen on a main road. My vanity kicked in immediately and I got straight up, picking up my glasses and (pathetically) stopping my GPS. I let out a very loud 'ow' and looked down to see blood pouring out of about 5 points on my left hand. My left ear felt like it had been sliced in half, and my left shoulder was protesting fairly loudly as well. So I slouched off towards home, feeling embarrassed, agonised and generally chastened by the whole experience.

Remarkably, I have only a mild graze on my right knee and elbow, and the left knee and elbow are intact. However, there is not much left of my little finger on my left hand apart from blood and scabs. I somehow have managed to cheese grate the inside of my ear, leaving the outside intact (don't ask, I'm never going to figure that one out). I have also cheese grated the back of my left shoulder, and have a big hole in the front of the same shoulder that, bizarrely, resembles a bullet hole.

Hell, maybe that's it, maybe I was shot and that's why I went down! Yes - that's my story and I am sticking with it...

LON