An unexpected birthday present

I was born on October 10th in the year of our lord 1978. It took until my 30th year to run my first 10k, jogging the flat beach path of Bournemouth in 50 minutes with the Chemical Brothers blaring in my ears. Encouraged, like many other runners I pushed out my distance and ran my first marathon in 2013.

The Brighton marathon was an amazing adventure, by far the biggest event I had run in, the experience of running with hundreds of runners felt truly magical. I managed a decent first time (3.33) and even had a consistent spell of over taking people before the pain kicked in at 21 miles. The last few hundred meters, with the crowd cheering was pure euphoria, shivers running down my spine like waves crashing against rocks.

After a summer off for the cricket season, I began training early September in preparation for the Portsmouth coastal marathon. I was excited by the new challenge of dealing with the hazards of a December marathon i.e. coastal gales and sideways rain.

By my birthday on October 10th training was going well. My training buddy and I (DT) had started hill rep training on a trail called 'ladder lane' in Swindon. Despite struggling to keep up with DT (Asthma and general unfitness) some progress was being made. Even though it was my birthday, and having the offer of a pub lunch, I decided to fit in an extra hills session.

Things started bad and got much worse. Early in the session I was struggling to keep up with DT and another work colleague called Duncan. On the uphill's, I laboured to breath in the heat of the midday sun. Whereas on the steep downhill's, I was simply not as quick or brave as the other guys.

Becoming more frustrated I decided to attack the next downhill with a little more gusto, despite the uneven ground and protruding tree roots. As I hurtled down the hill, I could see myself gaining on DT. Focussed on making up ground, my attention was momentarily diverted from the surface in front of me. With no brain telling it where to land, my foot decided that a stray root looked like flat land.

Unevenly placed, my foot took my full body weight and an audible crack cut through the autumnal air. Pulling up I reaslised something both unexpected and awful had happened.

Leaving DT and Duncan to finish their session, I limped the mile back to the office and then made my way to the hospital. After an X-ray my worse fears were confirmed. The momentum of the hill (and poor foot placement) had cause my tendon to fully extend, fracturing my 5th metatarsal.

I spent the rest of my birthday in plaster, contemplating if I would ever run again.