My Road To Running A Marathon: Part 2 - Injuries

Last time I made an update on my road to running a marathon I had just finished a half marathon walk/run in around 3 hours. After a few weeks of a lot of running and walking I experienced what I concluded must be achilles tendonitis. It doesn't really hurt when I'm warm, and I'm particularly fine walking. But it led to some problems stretching my hip because my achilles started hurting doing it.

Then I slacked with my stretching and yoga on a holiday trip to Copenhagen where we walked on pavements for a week (with barefoot shoes) averaging around 10-15km each day of walking. This of course resulted in my lower back going almost full retard. Full retard for me would mean not being able to move and having to piss in a bucket. Fortunately having that much back pain has not occurred in more than 5 years. But anyone who has struggled with Lumbago knows how much it sucks. You feel like your upper body is made up of two parts, and the top one is balancing on top of the other with some matches or something else really thin that could break if you don't walk really carefully.

Last time I had it though, I did not do any stretching except a little bit of hip flexing and backside thigh just very carefully, and continued to shop groceries, do the dishes and go for short but gradually longer walks. This worked fine and I recovered in about three or four days.

Hopefully I will be back soon - but right now it seems like the best thing to do is to get back into my yoga and stretching routine and also do some more core and strength exercises (I've been so obsessed by walking and running) and perhaps focus a little bit more on short walks and runs and go easy on the long walks.

Even though I love going for 3-4 hour walks it's both time consuming AND tiresome. I don't have any problems walking that far, but it does take some toll on my body.

So, the morale here must be to take your time and realize that being 36 and going from out of shape to what I would consider being in really good shape (running a full marathon) does take some time. I might have to accept that I won't make the goal this summer, but that's OK.

The most important thing is that I have found so much joy in walking and running, and that it feels like such a break from everyday life and stress. I've been doing it so frequently that I'm craving it - especially those long walks and long slow runs.

Next time I will hopefully update on some new records! Happy running/walking everyone!