Returning to Running

I am crossing my fingers but I do believe there is some light at the end of the tunnel as I am beginning to run again. Albeit very short runs and I am still feeling my injured heel. I am finding that after a mile my plantar fasciitis hurts a lot for a few minutes and then goes enabling me to run short distances. Currently there is no lasting affect and this is the difference compared to  back in May as then when I ran I was limping by the evening and the following day.

I have had a very frustrating time with this injury and I began to consider if my running days were over and perhaps I just wouldn't be able to do this anymore. It was difficult with the weather being so good and seeing other runners out and about when I was driving only rubbed this in as a sore point.

My last proper run was on the 23rd of April 2010. Since then I ran a few times in May in hope that I could just ignore the injury. I had a couple of goes in July and then at the beginning of August I have managed a number of very short runs :- 2 miles on the 1st , 2 on the 2nd , 3 on the 4th , 4 on the 6th and 3 miles this morning.

I tried cycling for a while and as good a sport as it is (love watching the Tour De France) I just found it wasn't for me. Partly I suppose because I didn't give it enough time, my bike was a freebie given to me probably about £70 retail but is a heavy town cycle not a specialist light road
cycle. It was heavy and sore on my back side and there was the constant threat of traffic on our Suffolk roads. When I cycled for an hour or hour and half I just didn't get the same effect that runners high , I just felt sore in the back side. I wouldn't rule it out in the future but it would have to be with a proper road cycle.

So in the break I have totally festered and when I got on the scales I had managed to put on 7 kilos and go from 83 to 90 kilos! Thats a lot of extra weight and is another prime cause I believe of plantar fasciitis.

I am not out of the woods yet as I say I can still feel pain at the beginning of a run.I highly recommed wearing Fitflops  these have been my saving grace as I don't feel any pain when wearing these. I am now making use of the Scholl Orthaheel Gel Heel Orthotic. 
These seem to help.

All I am attempting to do in the near future is hopefully continue my recovery and once again get fit and at the same time lose the weight I put on. I am going to plan out out a gentle return to running using a heart rate monitor instead of running to pace per mile. I don;t know about you but I have always followed training schedules using pace as the key factor.  Running using a heart rate monitor will be new to me and this will exciting to see how well this works in practice.

Thanks to runners who have posted me kind words of encouragement during my break. I am sorry that I haven't been to on the ball in returning any comments. I just found that as I wasn't running it was difficult to have anything to do with running without feeling frustrated and jealous. I stopped buying Runners World magazine as well as clearly I was no longer a runner.

Hopefully I am back!

Ickworth Park Suffolk - Seven Mile Run

I tried to pick the best time to run and listening to the weather forecast this suggested lunch time onwards. It certainly appeared that way as I set out towards Ickworth Park for an easy 7 miles. This is day 26 of my 11 week half marathon training programme and after being cooped up in the car for a lot of yesterday in a trip to the Birmingham NEC I was glad to be able to get out for a run.

Half way into the run the weather which had been breezy turned from a drizzle to hail and this was fun as my visability reduced and the ground around me turned a little white. The breeze soon took the dark black clouds away to be replaced by bright blue sky and a little sunshine.

A lot of this run took me of the road and on to the fields and pathways around Horringer and Ickworth Park. At times I was battling over thick mud and up and down hills.

My time for the 7 miles was 1hr 1 min and 54 which was a pb for the year, not that I was aiming or trying to do this and only represents a 5 seconds a mile improvement but as I pile on the miles I am looking for some small signs of progress.

I think all the training has also resulted in a reduction in my weight since Christmas as I am now down from 86.5 to 85 kilos. However as I am 5ft 9 inches tall according to the Body Mass Indicator Calculator I am overweight as I have a BMI of 27.6. Body Mass Index is defined as a person's weight divided by the square of a person's height, using the metric units kg/m^2.

It is also said that those who like to exercise such as runners may weigh a little more as they will have a stronger composition of muscle to fat. A number of gold medal winning athletes at the Olympics would be considered obese based solely on their BMI. A skinfold thickness measurement with calipers is used by some trainers and doctors when judging an athletes body fat ratio.

Online BMI Calculator

To get to a healthy BMI figure I would need a BMI under 25 and to do this be 76.5 kilos or 12 stone. That would mean losing 1 stone 4lbs or 10 kilos! Unlikely as I like a beer or two and I am not dieting in any way.

One of the alternatives to the BMI Calculator is the halls.md body mass index calculator. According to this they have slightly different definitions of weight.My BMI of 27.6 would make me marginally over weight - sounds a little better but not a lot!