My mind keeps dwelling on the very real possibility of developing some sort of debilitating injury. Ever since London marathon my calf muscles have felt like lumps of rock. I might be exaggerating slightly. On some days they have felt fine, typically after two or three days of rest. Then a shortish run sets them back again. For example, last night I went for an 8 mile run. For the first six miles I was feeling great. With one mile to go I started to feel a little bit of discomfort, then when I reached my front door my calf muscles were so locked I found it impossible to stretch them. I even tried stretching my calves by standing on the edge of a step and letting my heels drop down, but it was too painful. I then resorted to the trusted old foam roller, which was excruciatingly painful, but did seem to help a little. I berated myself for running 8 miles rather than just 6. If I'd stuck to 6 I would have been fine. Also, why did I run 2 miles at a sub 6 minute mile pace? What an idiot! Thankfully, I have a sports massage booked for tomorrow. Hopefully, that will sort me out and help me complete the Neolithic Marathon.
I keep reminding myself that this weekend's marathon is just a training run. I aim to run it super slow. I will also take my camera along and try to take several photos. It should certainly be a scenic run, starting from Avebury stone circle and finishing at Stonehenge. All I need to do is get to the finish in one piece and without my calves cramping. Then just two weeks later, on 18 May, I will be running the North Downs Way 50. My first 50 mile run in a single day.
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| The start and finish point of this weekend's marathon. Just in case you've never seen Avebury Henge or Stonehenge before. |
I should also mention what I did last weekend. For the record I did no running. I was on some forced rest because instead I attended a weekend training course in London. The course was actually four half-day Franklin method workshops. The Franklin method is something that the general public are probably completely unaware of. It's a form of exercise that uses imagery and movement. It was developed by Eric Franklin who was a frustrated dancer fed up of living with a painful back and painful knees and hearing doctors say he should stop dancing. He developed his own method of exercising and found it helped alleviate his pain so he could carry on dancing. So we now have the Franklin method, which joins the ranks of exercise philosophies such as Pilates and Feldenkrais, etc.
I attended the course on the recommendation of Ruth. But as the weekend drew nearer Ruth started to express doubts as to whether or not I would get anything from it. This made me wonder what I had let myself in for. I don't think I got much out of the first half day session, which was all about feet, because I felt like a fish out of water, and I don't think I full engaged in the process. The way the exercise sessions were structured was so very different to what I'm used to. I also felt a little uncomfortable about being one of only two men with about 25 women. I don't know why this should have bothered me given that I regularly coach an all female running club. I guess I felt different being one of the students rather than the person in charge.
So each half day focused on just one body part. After feet we focused on the spine in the afternoon. We did a series of exercises designed to improve mobility and reduce pain in people who regularly suffer with back pain. But the student is also encouraged to imagine in their mind what the spine is doing, the teacher uses props and diagrams to help this.
On Sunday morning we focused on the abdominal muscles. We were encouraged to lay our hands on the rectus abdominus, or the internal or external obliques, with our fingers pointing in the direction of the muscle fibres. As you exercised we'd move our hands to help visualise what the muscles were doing. For the abdominal muscles this was done as a kind of warm-up before moving on to more intense exercises. The visualisation process is supposed to help with the movement of the exercise. I know it sounds a little far out, but it did seem to work. I had much greater awareness of what each muscle was doing.
Then on Sunday afternoon we did a whole session on breathing. I was expecting to find this session the most tedious of the four. Far from it. After doing a number of visualisation exercises I felt that I was completely aware of my lungs and how they interacted with my ribs, my diaphragm, the scalenus muscles and the abdominals. I felt that I could breath more freely and deeply and had greater efficiency of breathing. It felt great. I left wanting to explore the Franklin method in more depth. The series of workshops were only supposed to be a taster into the Franklin method. It doesn't give me enough knowledge to teach it to others. In order to do that I need to sign up for a series of week long courses. I'm hoping they will publish dates soon for when it will be taught in the U.K. so I can see if it is feasible for me to attend.
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