Well I did promise you another graph ... and here it is. This is an analysis of my training load for last year's brutal London Marathon. I'm trying to answer the question:
"Why did I get my Achilles injury?"
I won't go into much detail save for:
- I found out I got my place on 18-January (the thick black line), so quite late.
- the data you see is a moving 4 week 'block' average - that way all the kinks and bumps are smoothed out and you can see the trend more easily.
- for the 'plan' I've added a nominal 17 mile/week average for Nov and Dec - this would have been an 'ideal' scenario...
Spot any problems folks?
John
Written by
John_W
Marathon
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I was feeling pain under my heel at the start of February but didn't recognise it - so i ploughed on. It was bad 1st thing in the morning but wore off after a short while. During and after a HM race on 25 Feb, the calf was quite tight - hadnt felt that before. Around that time, I'd noticed the back of heel was sore but no idea what it was. 3 weeks later, I ran a fast HM in Wrexham and the calf was ok afterwards BUT... 4 days later, I ran a quality lunchtime 5 miler with a v fast finish and the following morning, my Achilles was v v sore. There was no way I could do my long run that weekend... from then on it was 2 runs a week - the long one and a short mid-week one. So a 5 week taper instead of a 3 week taper. But as it was, the heat in London would have compromised by race anyway! Who know what state I'd have been in if I'd started fully trained and healthy...
It's impossible to know! If you start feeling a similar heel pain I expect you'd rein back your speed at least... but then what if you start feeling a vague pain somewhere else?
Good question. The unfinished business feeling was more with the distance than the event. Doing London finally was a massive tick - great weekend and experience, but brutal race. I wasn't left with a massive desire to do London again soon. I applied in the public ballot and for our 1 works club place, but I wasn't upset at missing out in both. I just want to do myself justice over the distance on a decent course and Manchester fits the bill nicely.
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Are all three of us going to stay the distance?
An injury and...a plan. I love a plan. :-)
Hi one and all.
