Prolonged Silence

I've not got round to updating my blog for this year's marathon. I kept meaning to, but I was so far behind that I kept putting it off. Anyway, here I am with five weeks and a day to go. Scared.

I've been training since December 16th or so - moving house and then a back injury hampered my attempts to starting training and I've only managed to go on 19 training runs so far... That's really not what I was hoping for when I carried over my place from last year. I'd been anticipating three runs a week for approximately five or six months.

After starting to recover from my back injury I posted some good times, fairly consistently hitting for the 3.5 hour marathon time, but only managed to get up to 20k in distance. Three weeks ago I ran my second fastest run of all time - a predicted 3:21 marathon time based on a 7.5k outing. I was pretty upbeat about stuff - I just needed to add on a fairly long run (25k) and then up it to 30k two or three weeks down the road.

That night I started getting stomach pains - thinking nothing of it I went to bed, but just couldn't sleep. I stayed up most of the night and finally grabbed a couple of hours around 5am. All morning I was in pain and then I started to get fevery and slightly faint.

Around 3pm I went to A&E where they diangosed me with acute appendicitis as well as two infections and low sodium levels. Unfortunately keyhole surgery was deemed too risky, so they went for a laparotomy instead - basically a three inch cut into the lower right side of my abdomen.

Obviously I asked whether I could run the marathon in eight weeks' time and the surgeon said, slightly hesitantly, that I could. Reading around online it seems like it's not impossible, but there are plenty of places that advise not doing any strenuous exercise for six weeks.

Two weeks later I went out to play Ultimate, and then 18 days after the operation I went out for my first run. It was a nervous 5k affair, with every twinge in my stomach worrying me. It was significantly off the times before the operation, but not worryingly so. I was a little tender after the run, but overall pretty happy.

This morning was my first proper run - where I knew I could do it, so didn't feel like I had to nurse myself round. Did the same 7.5k route that I did the day before my surgery - it's a double loop round where we live, with a run up and down a fairly steep hill. Definitely a good test of whether I'm recovered.

The result? I ran it 1 minute slower than last time, but almost exactly the same time as I did the run in six weeks ago, and still "on target" for the 3:30 marathon.

So where does that leave me? Well tomorrow is the five week countdown, I still haven't done much testing of drinking during runs, or done my long runs or tested out my diet for the day before. But I'm alive, and I'm still running and if I damn well have to walk the 26 miles I will. I've had to contend with knee problems, back problems and an operation - I will do this marathon.