Ups and downs of training

The first month of training has had its ups and downs. The most positive aspect has been Suzi's brilliant support for me doing a long run every Sunday morning. I get up and out at 6:00am, taking some sandwiches and a drink with me, and then return at about 9:00am, still with the day ahead with the family to look forward to.

The runs start in the dark for the first hour or so, but I'm finding that there's plenty of ambient light or moonlight to light my way out along the towpath, beneath Brunel's Suspension Bridge alongside the River Avon (hence the picture). The route continues along to a village called Pill, where I join-up with the A369 that returns to Bristol. There are lots of woods and parkland (Abbots Pool, Leigh Woods, Ashton Court) on the return leg to ensure that most of the run takes place off-road.

My training so far this month has been as follows:

• 14 Dec - 20 Dec = 34 miles
• 21 Dec - 27 Dec = 28 miles
• 28 Dec - 3 Jan = 11 miles
• 4 Jan - 10 Jan = 36 miles

As you can see, and to be expected, there was quite a dip over the Christmas and New Year period whilst family took precedence.

My training plan is roughly developing as follows:

• Run 4-5 days per week
• Sunday long run (building-up to 5+ hours) backed-up by another long run Monday evening (I help with the BAD Kids track night, and run about 4.5 miles to Filton Sport Academy) with a longer loop on the way back (building to 3+ hours)
• Weekday lunchtime runs to include hills work and a small amount of speed work
• Plenty of core exercises and regular weights (low weight / high reps)

The main negative aspect of this month's training has been that towards the end of my last long run, my right Achilles flared-up again with Achilles Paratendinopathy (inflammation in the Achilles area). This is something that I've had before, and looking back it was caused by:

1. Increasing my overall training volume too quickly (I did a hills session followed by a tempo session followed by the long run, all in 4 days) when my body just wasn't ready - the muscles were OK, but not the tendons
2. Not stretching properly after my runs

My treatment has mainly consisted of:

1. Not running, but doing general leg weights instead
2. Eccentric calf lowers to strengthen the Achilles
3. Lots of stretching

I'm hoping that I've caught this problem early enough that I can restart running after a week's lay-off.

I'll make sure I continue with the exercises to strengthen my Achilles, along with lots of stretching, which should hopefully prevent any reoccurrence.

There was some very useful information on Achilles Tendonitis in my training bible - The Lore of Running by Dr Tim Noakes.

Looking ahead, I still want to reach my first goal of completing about a marathon distance as a training run by sometime in March (without any further injury!). The pace will be about 10 minute miles, equating to about a 4.5hour training run. That will give me April/May/June to extend this to 6+ hours.

That's the plan, but this is a journey into the unknown for me, so we'll see...