Christmas is a great time of year I love it. Apart from being with the family and getting to do all the festive things I also get the opportunity to get some good training in. I have now taken on Ronnie Staton as a coach with the aim of not just completing the Hardmoors 160 but to also go on and achieve some new goals I've set. I now have a much more structured programme involving different workouts and durations which I am trying to incorporate. My training was building up great, readying myself for the Hardwolds 80 which I was doing as a tester really. Regrettably though I came down with flu or a virus that completed knocked me for six. I waited right to the last minute, having this annoying mental battle all day on the Friday before I finally came to the conclusion that I was in no fit state to attempt an 80 mile ultra race let alone a 13.1 mile half marathon. Its an incredibly difficult decision to make when you can still move around ok and always believe in being the kind of person that will always try before accepting defeat. In this case though it would have been dangerous to have even tried and irresponsible, plus unfair on the people organising the event.
A couple of weeks had passed and this flu was still lingering. I couldn't shake it, and my training was beginning to lessen as time went on. After nearly 4 weeks I was able to start getting back into but now we were entering the Christmas season and this was going to hamper it yet again. I've manage to just about keep up with the schedule but I stupidly went out one cold morning this week with intention of doing hill sprints as my scheduled training. The idea was to do 1-3 miles steady warm up followed by 14 medium 10 second sprints then a 1-3 mile cool down. Well I was up against it for time with trying to fit everything in and I didn't take care of myself. I only allowed for a minimal warm-up, barely even a mile but I convinced myself this was fine. I began the sprints, 3/4 effort was what was required but I think mine was more like 90%. I managed 8 before I felt a tweak in my hamstring, at the time it didn't really feel like much so I tried another before pulling up and deciding that was enough and just headed back home in a straggling slow jog looking like a lame dog.
Where am I now? Well I've luckily had a few days off work for New Year so I've used the time to rest altogether allowing it time to mend. I'm hoping to get out tomorrow for a run/hike and to test it. It was a big strain so I'm hoping the few days off will have been enough. Lesson learnt!!!!
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