2013 summary

Well its been some time since I've posted anything on here so I thought I'd have a bit or a recap of last year.

Since I started running again around 5 years ago, 2013 has definitely been the worst year of training and racing I've had, certainly the first 3 quarters of it anyway. It all started going wrong after Cramlington cross country race in October 2012 where I picked up a slight hamstring niggle. I then made it 10 times worse by running aggressively downhill cross country training the week after which left me completely unable to run on it for almost a month.

When I did finally get back into running I was only able to manage 2-3 miles at an easy pace and only 24 miles in total for November and December. January was a little better and I was able to progress up to around 7 mile runs (and 35 miles in total), but then in February I badly hurt my back trying to lift a CRT TV which again left me completely unable to run for a good few weeks.

March was a little better, clocking in at around 55 miles in total but I still didn't manage to run longer than 8 miles and nothing at any sort of decent speed.

I had entered the Sunderland Marathon again and was hoping to break 3 hours, but had no chance of achieving that given my lack of training which was also compounded with working some long hours at work so I had to withdraw from the race. Gutted.

I still hoped to run an Autumn marathon, but again through May and June I just couldn't seem to find the motivation to put in the required base training.

I ran the Chevy Chase at the beginning of July with nowhere near enough preparation and this led to another injury - calf this time, which I was unable to shake off for around a month.

By this point I had around 5 weeks preparation for the Great North Run, so I decided put in some effort to do some high quality sessions & speed work in the hope of being able to at least match last years time. Unfortunately some hill sprints put paid to that with another hamstring injury which again left me unable to run for about a week and a half before the race.

Some Ibuprofen on the day helped me get through the race, but my lack of fitness left me 3 minutes slower than last year.

Next race a few weeks later was the first cross country race of the season in Tanfield which was equally as disastrous with me pulling my other hamstring within seconds of starting the race - this time so badly that my leg was physically bruised. An autumn Marathon now was definitely out of the question.

So October 2012 - September 2013 is without doubt the worst period of training I have had since starting running again. I averaged less than 50 miles a month, only 2 long runs and no marathons and had more injuries in that period than the 4 years which preceded it.

2013 wasn't entirely all bad news though, from October on-wards things have got progressively better and I think a number of things have contributed to this. I've joined a gym and am now doing regular strengthening & core exercises and I have managed to find my motivation again.

Since October I have been steadily increasing my mileage to the point I am now up to 55 miles a week, and am also doing some quality speed work. My race times have improved and I am now at the point where I fell better and fitter than I have ever been before.

I hope to update my blog on a more regular basis again, and will also post some race reports from last year (although some of them won't make for pretty reading).

Here's to a more successful 2014!!