Back to the future

It is now only 3 weeks away from the Brighton marathon . My foot stopped hurting around 3 weeks ago. For the last 3 months I have been slowly upping my training, determined to be fit enough to run come April. Last year I underestimated how fast I would be able to run in my first ever marathon and placed myself in a slower pen.I spent the first half of the route running around people, by mile 22 my legs had cramped up from the quick slow intervals i had to endure at the beginning of the race.

Despite my legs disobeying the commands of my brain for the last 4 miles by shuffling, I finished in a completely unexpected time of 3.33, a full 27 minutes faster than I thought was possible. A combination of not knowing the pace I was running in training (no running watch), and a speed interval first half of the race, had helped me over achieve. The joy and sense of achievement was bliss. This, I hoped, would be the first of may races, building up to a ultra-marathon.  The I broke my foot and put on a stone of weight eating chocolate.

So I had to reassess my goals for 2014. First and foremost I needed to get out on the street and start building up to 5k. Rebuild my core strength in the gym and slowly over weeks push my distance out on the weekend.

This work will lay the foundation to (fingers crossed) allow me to finish the 2014 Brighton Marathon and build  up to the tough, hilly Trail Marathon Wales in June.

Cast away

My return to the hospital was 6 long, boring weeks after my initial injury. During this period, I found that thanks to modern technology, I could work fairly effectively from home with a laptop and mobile phone. With limited movement, my morale suffered peaks and troughs, but throughout I was determined to get better and return to running. My ambition still burned and I wanted to improve my pace and run longer, tougher trail races. 

As the weeks went by, I started to walk longer distances on my foot, supported by the stiff base of my NHS issued black cast slipper. The crutches were soon left at home and I trusted the growing strength in my bones to move my body from A-B.

I learned to cope with the constant aching and pain I felt when walking. My foot felt swollen and weak. Any lateral movement caused shooting pains, meaning that I actively avoided walking on irregular surfaces such as dirt and stone paths. But despite the daily pain I could feel my foot healing. Each day the aching, ached a little less and I was able to walk a little further. As the days ticked by I became more excited about returning to the hospital and getting the all clear. 

The NHS treatment room at Southampton's Royal South Hants Hospital was a smorgasbord of stories charting youthful misadventure and unfortunate work orientated mistakes. Athletic teenagers sat with their crutches draped across the clinics plastic chairs, while manual laborers nursed broken arms supported by their concerned wives. I sat, hoping that my black slipper would be removed and I could start to exercise again. 

My stay in the waiting room was a short one and I was quickly sent for an X-Ray. A short while later I was sat with the specialist viewing the hidden features of my foot. The Doctor looked away from the x-ray and asked how I felt, I replied 'great'. He smiled and pointed and a spot on the picture, " you have what we call fibrous healing, meaning that the bone has not knitted together, soft tissue has started to bond together but the bone growth is delayed". 

This came as a great shock, I was convinced that I was going to get the all clear, and be able to start training for my April Marathon. The Doctor went on, "sometimes the bone will heal, but take a longer period of time than normal. But in other instances the bone will never heal, the tissue will do the job of the bone, acting like a joint". 

No bone growth sounded very, very  bad. Concerned, I told the Doctor that I had a marathon in April and I had to start training soon. The Doctor smiled and said, "there is no reason why you can not run the marathon, start with light low impact training and build slowly. If the pain gets too much, come back and see me". 

To say I was overjoyed was an understatement. Not the diagnosis I was expecting, but I was elated all the same. The black slipper was left at the hospital and I journeyed home, planning my first trip to the gym in months.

Plastered

After my slight mishap I spent the next couple of weeks at home, hopping round the house and trying to keep my foot elevated. I quickly realised that crutches, although helpful were also a massive pain in the arse. My upper body strength, coordination and balance are all pretty rubbish. So I spent most of the time flapping around like a daddy long legs bouncing off a light bulb.

The frustration of not being able to walk, let alone run, was at times unbearable. Some times the frustration of having my movement limited got to me. Getting a bath required a fair degree of contortion and driving my car was out of the window.

However I tried to remain positive. Many people have come back from far worse injuries and carried on running.  My long suffering wife looked after me and the news of the troubles in Syria helped me put my own troubles in perspective.

Having a cat also helps. long hours stuck indoors by yourself is a lonely affair. Stevie the cat seemed to have an uncanny knack for lifting my mood, purring and cuddling up to my splint every hour of the day.

After much laying about with the cat, eventually a letter from the hospital came and the plaster was soon cut off. My inflexible knee high plaster was replaced by a rather sexy black slipper. Apart from being an amazing statement of my world renowned fashion sense, the slipper kept my foot flat and un-flexed. The stiff nature of the soul would give my bone support and encourage it to grow back together.

The major benefit of the slipper was that I could put weight on my foot. I could walk, slowly, painfully and only over a short distance, but I could walk. It is strange that something so simple, so basic as walking could give me so much happiness.

My mood felt lifted and the possibility of running again seemed one step closer. I was counting down the weeks to my next hospital visit.

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.