This month’s blog was meant to be a race review of the Yeovil Half Marathon, which I had entered last weekend. Instead, it will be a reflection of how I ended up with one of my worst running injuries to date, which has led to me having to scrap all of my early 2024 race plans.
Background
The Yeovil HM was scheduled to be my final training race before the Brighton Marathon, which for me was the ‘A’ race of spring. Coming two weeks before the marathon, it was slightly closer than ideal, but was the perfect opportunity to visit my friend who happens to live in the town.
My previous HM PB was 1:21:52, coming at the Hedgehog HM in October last year. Throughout marathon training I had incorporated some sessions at a new target HM pace of around 6:00/mile. Adjusting for the fact that Yeovil is a fairly hilly course, I was optimistic of running a time in the 1:18-1:20 range, hopefully giving me a new PB and a positive race performance that could give me further confidence for the big day in Brighton.
Race week – when things started going wrong
The first sign of any trouble came in the Tuesday of race week. That day I ran 2 x 4 miles at target marathon pace (6:45/mile). The run itself was relatively comfortable - I hit my target paces, enjoyed the run, and knew that now I just needed to rest and enjoy spending some time with my friend. However, that afternoon I noticed some discomfort in my left thigh (quadriceps to be precise). It wasn’t significant, and my only remark about it was to joke with a running friend that my ‘maranoia’ had begun. When I woke up the next morning I felt fine, and I didn’t have any issues as I made the long journey down from Yeovil to Hull, about eight hours door to door.
Feeling good, on Thursday I set off for my scheduled 8-mile easy run.
This was my chance to run the 2nd half of the race route,
which is the hillier section. I’d covered it once before, last
September, but I knew that having some fresher knowledge would be
beneficial when it comes to the mental side of the race. And in that regard the run was successful – the course in my mind felt
easier than I expected, with only two categorised ‘hills’ to get
over and the rest being undulating, before a long downhill that
started the run in to the finish.
Physically, there was quite a bit on this run that didn’t feel
great. I was a bit sore on my right side, and there was a dull ache from
my left thigh. While there was nothing at all made me think I should abort the run,
or majorly concerned me, it was on my mind. I know that after a rest day
(which I only have once or twice a month during regular training) I
often feel a little stiff, and it would certainly make sense for that
to apply after an eight hour journey carrying luggage. I was also
wearing a relatively new set of running shorts which feature a bit of
compression around the upper leg, and I wondered if that was causing
some of the discomfort. I'd actually forgotten about the small thigh pain on Tuesday afternoon, having written that off as maranoia - it's only with hindsight that it becomes rather more obvious to connect the dots!
Friday dawned, and originally I had intended a 10km easy run. However, I still felt a bit sore and wanted to enjoy spending time with my friend, so decided to take this as an extra rest day. I’m always aware of the idea that in your taper, you never have time to see physiological improvements from any training, and that ‘you can only make things worse’. So rather than do a run that would have had little benefit and been a mental drag, I had a fantastic time getting destroyed at Mario Party instead.
While some people know the day after Friday as Saturday, for some of
us in the running community it is more lovingly known as parkrunday.
Any trip away is a chance for me to visit a new event, and this week
it was The Great Field parkrun in Dorchester that I had my eyes on,
just a 30 minute train journey from Yeovil. It was a really nice
event, with one of the best atmospheres I have experienced at a
parkrun, thanks to the number of marshals that they have on their
3-lap course. They also have a cafe situated just metres from both
the start and finish lines, where my friend took the opportunity to
enjoy a great cooked breakfast as I did my warmup.
The aim of the parkrun for me was to push myself a little bit and
check how I felt, but also to remember that I had a race the
following day. As usual I got sucked a little bit into trying to keep
near the front, but when towards the end of the first lap I looked at
my watch and saw we were at 6:00/mile pace, I took the opportunity to
ease back and just enjoy running somewhere different. In the end I
finished in 19:09, and felt physically great, giving me a huge
confidence boost for the half marathon. We even made it back to the
station in time for the next train, saving us the two-hour wait for
the following one that we had expected!
Race day
Surprisingly, I slept quite well the night before the race, and woke up feeling confident and ready to push myself. I’d adjusted my pace targets slightly, and was going to prioritise enjoying the event rather than a finish time if necessary. But I remembered how hard I had trained over the previous three months, and wanted to take this chance to reap the rewards. A 15-minute warmup up and down the nearest hill felt great, and then it was time to walk to the start line. The Yeovil Half Marathon is a reasonably sized race, with 666 finishers this year, but had a fairly relaxed atmosphere around the start line. It makes such a nice change to warm up and then pick up my race number half an hour before the start time, as opposed to how it can be at the bigger events – for Brighton I would have needed to be in my wave 80 minutes before we set off!
As the mayor counted us down I did some final stretches, and then we were off… and instantly I knew something wasn’t right. The race begins with a downhill, and I could feel a fair amount of pain coming from my left quadriceps. But at this point I was still able to push the pace, so I decided to try and stick with it for a little while to see what happens. I was just out of the back of the front group of roughly eight runners, and indeed ran through the first two miles right on target pace (which is both remarkable and incredibly stupid in hindsight). However, the pain was mounting, and I think already at this point I knew that I wouldn’t be making it to the finish line of this race. The pain was continuing to get worse, and also the whole of my left leg was beginning to go numb, giving me less confidence in my stride pattern.
Desperate to see if there was some way I could finish, I tried to slow myself down and see if that made things any better. After 5:52 and 6:01 miles to start, the third mile was at 6:46 – up to my target marathon pace, and slower than I’d comfortably finished the parkrun the day before. But really the pain was only getting worse, not better. As I passed my friend who was cheering me on at three miles, I replied to his ‘keep going, you’re doing great’ with something along the lines of ‘I’m really not’. Apparently the pain was fairly visible on my face at this point, but I didn’t feel able to pull out of the race at what was such a well supported area on the route!
Past the support, as a last resort I slowed down to a walk. Thus began the mentally painful process of watching everyone else come past me as I limped along. The running community is amazing, and a lot of runners asked me if I was okay as they overtook, to which I always gave a ‘I’ll be alright, thank you’. It was obvious to both me and them that I wasn’t indeed okay, but I knew I didn’t need immediate medical support, and so didn’t want to disrupt their race. Honestly, I just wanted to be left alone to process what was going on. After a few minutes I tried to get back to a run, but lasted less than a dozen steps, and it was then that my brain finally let myself stop. I’d done the best that I could, but there was no way I was going to be able to get another 9.7 miles to the finish!
As I stopped at the next marshal, I was very grateful for a lamppost to sit down against, and just took a few minutes to get over the immediate mental disappointment of having to DNF this event. I also knew within myself that this meant my goal of running the Brighton Marathon was also over. The marshal did as much as she could for me, but thankfully didn’t ask me once if I was sure I wanted to pull out – I think it must have been as obvious to her as it was to me.
The Aftermath
It took me 46 minutes to walk the 1.2 miles back from where I’d pulled out to my friend’s house. By the time we’d got there, I couldn’t actually walk at all – the very little movement I managed over the next two days was a combination of hopping, crawling, and the majority of the time just sliding around on my bum. I’ll cover the recovery process properly in next month’s blog, but at the moment it’s been a week, and walking is still reduced to a very limited shuffle. I did visit A&E the day after the race to try and do something about the pain and lack of mobility, but was just given a couple of days worth of painkillers, without any diagnosis. I’m fairly confident that I’ve got a nasty tear of at least one muscle within the quadriceps group, but will probably never get any further depth. I’ve told myself that this will mean four weeks without running, and so three more to go from today, but really only time will tell. To be completely honest, my main priority right now is simply to walk without pain.
Conclusion
If you’ve got this far, thank you! I think this was more a way for me to start processing what happened rather than anything else, but I’d love to hear your thoughts, or your recovery process if you’ve had something similar. If you’ve got any Netflix recommendations for things I can watch during this period, please do share! But most of all, whenever you’re on your next run, just take a moment to appreciate what your body can do, no matter what pace or distance you’re going.
