During a duathlon, whilst transition between bike and final run, I twisted my knee, but the stubborn competitive streak in me pushed on to finish the race. After a two year wait, I underwent a Lateral Release knee operation to fix what I had broken. That was in 2012. In the subsequent years, following that my weight increased and any form of exercise stopped.
Roll on 2018 and the desire to get back to a healthy weight was to strong. I first started walking and within a few weeks walking wasn’t just cutting it and the running returned. I completed my first 5k since 2012 in March. The competitve streak returned and I started running with the local athletic club, picking up a few minor injuries on the way, I completed a half marathon in September 3½ stone lighter than January.
Training after that continued and come November I was feeling great, no niggles or pains speed and endurance was improving at a rate, then 2 weeks before Christmas performance dropped for no apparent reason. A bit of chest pain that lasted a few minutes during the start of any run was shrugged off as a muscle pain. Then a 5k run on boxing day didn’t produce the time I was setting out to achieve, I hit a wall half way through, which was sitting well with me as I thought I was in a better place.
Training continued in the first few weeks of January but having signed up for the Dublin marathon, and with the chest pain still happening I thought I better get a check up to be sure all was OK.
I’m writing this in a hospital ward, having had a positive treadmill test and waiting to be sent to Galway for an angiogram. My doctor wasn’t happy with the ecg test she done in the surgery and sent me straight to A&E.
Having signed up for a 10mile race in March and a half marathon in April, I’m still hopeful of competing in these and Dublin marathon, this week will tell more.
The one thing these experiences have shown is to never ignore the pain. It’s the bodies way of telling you it’s not happy and something needs fixed.
Stay safe and run..
Since writing this, I have since been told that I have a 30% narrowing on an artery and doctors have told me not to run distances greater than 10k – a real kick in the teeth. So I won’t ever run a marathon.