Author: MarathonMannUK

If you read my  MarathonMann blog “What a difference a year makes” you will understand what the last 12 months have meant to me, recovering from a heart condition that is curable only with the help of the results of years of research and development.

It’s time to talk about the cause which I am supporting in the London Marathon.  The British Heart Foundation funds research into all kinds of heart decease including heart rhythm problems like mine, and those which can’t yet be treated in the same way.

I am really pleased and grateful that I am able to do things like I did today, run the 4 miles to Temple Newsam, do the 5K parkrun and then run 2 miles to the spa for a sauna and shower.  Without the research that led to the Cardiac Ablation procedure, I would never have been able to do that! (volunteers at Temple Newsam parkrun may recall the time in 2012 when I had to pull out after the first few hundred meters and they kindly looked after me and even gave me a little job so I could be on the volunteer roster!)

Now for the important bit, the link to my JustGiving page which is here.

If you want to read what I wrote from the hospital bed just over a year ago, here are the links to my two blog entires.

Under the knife?

Recovery

This morning, things didn’t get off to the most brilliant of starts.  Because I hadn’t plugged my trusty iPhone in properly to re-charge, it lost power during the night and consequently, my alarm didn’t go off at 5:30 when it was supposed to.  I woke up at 5:55 with a vague feeling that something was wrong.  No real harm done though, I got to the gym a little bit late, but shock horror, I wasn’t able to take a selfie because, you guessed it, my phone was dead (so dead in fact that even 15 minutes in the car on the way to the gym wasn’t even enough to wake it up).

No matter.  Some time ago I wrote about the importance of setting goals.  For some time I have been aiming to get a really good picture of the Moon and it has been challenging to see how much I can (or can not) achieve with my camera and a telephoto lens which I got for Christmas a few years ago.  Last year I aquired a reflecting telescope (being quite interested in astronomy) but struggled to find a suitable adaptor to connect my camera. (Its obviously satisfying to just look through the viewfinder but really great if you can capture some photographs).  After a lot of research, I finally managed to get a custom design 3D printed (FaceBook friends will recall I shared a picture of the design when it was produced a while back) and today’s clear night was the first time I have had a chance to try it out.

Suffice to say, I was really pleased with just how well it worked!  I was able to get some shots of the Moon with incredible detail and I can’t wait to try it out on other planets, stars and galaxies when I get time! It just goes to show that persistence pays off.

Persisting with my Marathon training, I have been really good holding off the running for the past couple of days, I am looking forward to parkrun tomorrow morning and plan to run the 4 miles to the start, should be a good warm up; I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Sometimes you pay a professional to tell you the blindingly obvious but it’s worth it because often you just need to be told.  This week I was reminded of the obvious but also given an insight that I really would not have found out on my own.

First, the obvious.  If you are doing more miles your are putting your body under a good deal of stress, this means it’s even more important not to over-do it.  The physio suggested that I reduce the number of running days in a week from 5 to 4, hence I found myself in the gym this morning carrying his next suggestion (rather than pounding the streets at 5 AM which I would otherwise have done).

It appears that my sense of balance needs some work; if I stand on one leg, look to the right, then to the left, it’s really hard to stay balanced.  What’s even more difficult for me is the “lateral hop” where you are supposed to hop sideways and retain your balance.  What he suggested is that I spend time practicing these excercises because if I get better at balancing my running will use up less energy and put less strain in my limbs.

My weekend long run is 15 miles and I am told that’s a good place to be at this point in my training.  Getting the right balance between training and rest together with working on my physical balancing skills may be what I need to make the difference.  I don’t need to run particularly fast to beat my marathon PB, I just need to keep up an even steady pace for the 26.2 miles.