Three Weeks To Go - Eating 21 Miles For Breakfast

4th October 2009

With the knee rested for over a week, I returned to Brussels feeling a bit more upbeat. I'd been chomping the painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs and wasn't feeling any pain.

With the New York Marathon just 28 days away I was acutely aware of the need to do a long run. The Long Run part of the training is very important, not only from a physical point of view but also from a mental point of view. Completing it reassures you that the massive distance involved in the marathon is achievable and also allows you to try out certain things, for example using gels, drinking water, setting the right pace and generally getting a sense of how you will feel on the day and what problems could crop up.

A few weeks ago, before encountering my injury, I'd entered the Brussels Marathon and I decided that I would start it and see how far I could get. If my knee began to hurt I would drop out, but in a best case scenario I would be able to do 21 or 22 miles, thus covering off my Long Run.

The Brussels Marathon is tiny in terms of competitor numbers, with just 2,000 runners, compared to New York's 37,000 or London's 30,000. Even Edinburgh, the other marathon I have run, had 13,000.

It's also a very fast marathon, with a 5 hour cut-off. No beginners here.

Arriving at the start, in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe in the Park Cinquantenaire, built when Belgium celebrated 50 years of independence in 1880, it became very obvious that this was a marathon for SERIOUS RUNNERS. Nearly everyone had a gel belt and a lot of serious kit. There weren't that many women.

I suppose the reason is that the Brussels course isn't particularly pretty, the city itself isn't a major holiday destination and finally that the course is very hilly, so there's no likelihood of getting your best time. Here's the profile:












The Brussels marathon has a team of professional pace-setters who aim to set a steady pace for runners who want to reach the finish line at a certain time. There are seven sets of 2 runners, each with massive coloured balloons on their backs for a certain time, ranging from 2 hrs 59 - Pink balloon to 4hrs 3o - orange balloons.


I lined up with the Orange balloon team and was quickly introduced to John and Terry, who said there were "our grandparents" and would look after us for the run. They were both fairly old but super fit and running with them was great.

I remembered my Edinburgh marathon experience where I had been really concentrating on my time, wearing a pace band, continually checking my watch. It was quite stressful. Following a pacemaker completely removes that and allows you to focus on the race itself. I will definitely follow one in New York.


The race went well, with good weather conditions. I found myself reminded of why I love running and the sense of immense personal achievement I derive from it. Brussels is a very green city, and the route goes through the woods and out to the beautiful Africa Museum before returning to the city and ending in the Grand Place.











The city also has a lot of traffic tunnels, and this, in terms of a marathon, means a lot of running down in to the tunnel and up out of the other side. I feared for my knee entering the first one but tried to concentrate on my breathing and "running from my core." Up and down, it was fine.

Reaching the half marathon at 2 hrs 15, I took a gel - vanilla flavoured, and powered on. The knee pain kicked in. I took 2 paracetamol.












Stopping after 21 miles was tough. Part of me really wanted to carry on to the finish but I was in a lot of pain and acutely aware of how long it took me to recover from the Edinburgh marathon. My main focus is on New York and being able to get round the course and enjoying it. So I stopped and walked the remaining 5 miles. Almost everyone passed me and a policeman drove past, closing the course.

Handing my chip in at the Grand Place I felt great. The New York marathon is in my sights and all feelings of letting myself or my running buddy down were gone.

Link to my official marathon time, here

Time for 21.02 miles: 3 hrs 36 mins
Average Pace: 10 mins 16 seconds/mile

Overall time for marathon: 5 hrs 9 minutes

Four Weeks To Go - Riddled With Injury

29th September, 2009

This week has been fairly depressing.

After the joy of the new trainers passed I somehow managed to injure my knee. Last week's short runs were all cut short by a nagging pain around the bottom and outside of my left knee cap.











I had to give up after 3 miles on Wednesday and then - perhaps stupidly - opted to go out again on Thursday and couldn't make it any further than about a mile and a half. Turning home I felt really, really dejected. I wondered if I hadn't stretched enough after my 10 mile run last Tuesday.

After resting for a few days (Friday and Saturday) I tried to go out for a long run on Sunday afternoon with my friend and running buddy, Natalia. Setting off in the Bois de la Cambre, we tracked down in to the woods - all was going well, but after about seven miles, we ran down a sharp slope and the knee pain came back. I tried to push on through the pain and keep going but eventually had to stop and we walked for a mile before trying to start running again. It was no use as the pain continued to get worse and after another mile or so we had to stop and walk the rest of the way home.

I felt very dejected as I've never experienced anything like this before.

Getting in to a negative mindset is awful. I began to worry that I won't be fit enough for New York. I really started to beat myself up about not stretching enough, not putting in enough miles or getting enough sleep and finally I started to think I haven't been taking the training seriously enough, perhaps the knowledge that I've already run a marathon has made me a bit complacent about training for the next one.












Work took me and my foul mood to the Swedish city, Goteborg, where I had a lot of time to think on my strategy going forward. The most important thing for me at this point is to be able to get around the marathon course in New York, preferably running the whole way. Using my best Swedish, I bought some ibuprofen and some ibuprofen gel for the knee and did a few stretches.














Through a friend, I managed to find a drop in physioclinic in Gotenburg. http://www.sportrehab.se/

After a good deal of prodding around and "provoking" me, the physio, diagnosed an "overuse" injury inside the joint.

If you over-exercise your knee you can aggravate the cartilage and another layer called the meniscus, which cushion the impact when you run.

At best, the area becomes inflamed and at worst it can begin to tear away from the joint. He didn't seem to think that mine wasn't torn (I would be in a lot more pain if it were) just inflamed.

The good news is that it isn't a problem with the knee cap or the muscles surrounding the knee or the tendons, as these kind of problems are more serious. He seemed confident it would heal, but said the meniscus area has bad blood supply and therefore takes - on average - longer to heal.

The anti-inflammatory gel wouldn't work, he said, because the aggravation is inside the joint, too deep to be reached with gel. So the bad news is he was VERY evasive about how long it would take and said I should "reassess" my plans to run the marathon and "throw my training schedule out of the window."

Me: "Yes but I am running a marathon in 4.5 weeks, I need to train."

Physio: "Well, you rest now, you may be ok for the marathon, you train hard now, maybe your knee problem comes back and you have to run the last 10k of the marathon in pain, you do yourself a great deal of damage, you get in to a vicious cycle."

And so I left with a downbeat feeling, some anti inflamatory drugs and a recommendation to rest before starting low level exercise like biking or walk-run-walk.

I am to take Voltaren for 10 days - which contains 25mg of diclofenac (picture below). It is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory which could cause "severe stomach pain" according to the physio - YUM!