The Running Man is Back

Well it seems my desire to run hasn't faded away. In fact it's probably stronger after my recent lay off with a knee injury. After my treatment, I got back into running a few miles, and a few days later had only realised how much I had missed it. I'm now in much better shape, my knee is still okay, and this week I managed to train on 5 consecutive days, which is something I don't remember doing before.

But there is still a long way to go if I am to complete the marathon in my goal time of 4 hours. That for me is the time to beat, and to do this I have to put in a lot of miles and stay smart about my training. The key is consistency and in the past two marathons my training was anything but consistent. For Auckland 2006, I tended to drop off in training, sometimes for more than one week without a run. For Rotorua 2007, I didn't train hard enough, sometimes only running 1-2 times a week. This time, if all goes well with my training, my preparation in terms of running effort would be similar to Auckland 2006, but I'm hoping that by being consistent I should be in better shape this year. Fingers crossed.

Another thing is to stay injury free. I'm incorporating stretches for my legs, and doing less weights. I still need to do strength exercises for legs, so I cannot discount the weights altogether. The main thing is not to work the legs too much, otherwise they won't be in good shape for running, and the leg muscles tighten up, which will lead to injuries. Injuries are the last thing that I want at this stage of my training.

So far, I've stuck religiously to my training programme, and am hoping that I can keep at it for the next 10 weeks. Here's hoping it will help me realise my goal time of 4 hours.

Do I have any more motivation?

I have suffered from knee problems lately, which has curtailed my running. But finally I now see light at the end of the tunnel, courtesy of my lovely physiotherapist. She has been a real star trying to rehabilitate my knees.

But given my 2 month layoff from running, I find that my motivation to train for the 2007 Auckland Marathon is on the wane. Am I really motivated to break 4 hours this time? Am I really prepared to put in a lot of miles this year?

I may run the whole thing again, but it looks like I may have to revise my goal time of 4 hours.