I can’t believe that this time last week I had run the London Marathon. My first ever race. My first ever time running with anyone else around.
I don’t do things by halves do I?
I am happy with my recovery. But let me summarise just for the record of it how it’s gone.
I went into the race with two injuries. A groin strain which had limited my training in the last 3 weeks but was pretty much gone on the day and a very sore knee from taking a tumble. Although this was still bad on the day it didn’t seem to be any worse for the running and I really didn’t notice it.
By the end of the race I didn’t want to be standing at all. My leg muscles were agony. Interestingly my feet were fine. There were no blisters from rubbing socks or trainers and my feet weren’t even tired. This is probably thanks to my anchor which gave me the feeling of sticking my feet into a cool stream.
Sunday afternoon and evening my legs remained agony. Someone mentioned that they would be worse on Monday. Thanks for that! Unfortunately they were right but there was nothing I could do about it. I had a hot bath on Sunday but when I woke I couldn’t move in bed hardly at all. It felt like I had a groin strain on the other leg!
On Monday I drove to Blackpool. Sitting down all day was great. Getting in and out of the car at services not so! As Monday progressed the legs eased up but my right foot became painful along the outside edge.
By Tuesday my legs were mostly recovered and the feeling of the groin strain had all but gone. But my foot was getting really bad. I used Escuedero (a Cognitive Hypnotherapy technique) on my foot so I could dress up with my nice shoes for the black tie event. This worked so well that I went to bed thinking my foot was getting better! I realised I was wrong when I woke up early on Wednesday and drove home. It was getting worse.
On Thursday I checked out some stuff online and decided it looked like a stress fracture but the solution was to rest for about 3 weeks which is what I was doing anyway.
Meanwhile my big toe which already had a half black nail started feeling quite sore and looking pretty dodgy. It was getting hard to put socks and trainers on but if I wore my sandals it didn’t support my right foot enough! This wasn’t helped when the little one dropped her boot on it, stood on it and then a little boy knocked a heavy basket onto it in Hobbycraft. There was silent swearing and there were few tears as I reached the absolute limit of what I could cope with.
Then when everything was at its worst I noticed that actually there was a huge blister under the toenail. I had noticed that during the marathon that toe was rubbing when I walked so I guess it was almost a bone blister so had taken longer to develop.
Last night I attacked it with a pin…oh my, that was a big blister! It was so much better after! The throbbing stopped and I could bear to have it touched. A good nights sleep and it was way better. Now it’s started to build up a little again after being out in trainers all day but I’ll do the same tonight and tomorrow I’m sure it will be mostly healed.
I decided I would probably go and see a doctor about my foot this week but today it’s been way better so fingers crossed I won’t need to.
My knee is still really sore. Not sure what that’s all about either.
So I know it doesn’t sound like it but recovery has been pretty good. My legs are fine and I’m planning on heading to the gym tomorrow morning for a spell on the rowing machine and a swim. It’ll be nice to get back to activity. Then hopefully in a week I’ll be able to resume my short run before work everyday.
