Week 14: Tape-ring (tapering) – eh! eh? eh :-(

When eavesdropping around more experienced runners it seems that the hard running should now be done. Pity no one seemed to tell Lee as he ran to Chichester from Brackleham and back on the weekend - the animal. But this should now finally be the end to the mega runs until the megarest run of them all in 3 weeks time.

Personally I found last week frustrating as I was held back by the fear of my foot falling off. During this time I tried swimming to keep active but translating training runs to the swimming pool didn’t really work – especially the bits which resulted in:

A)    Being stuck behind an OAP aerobics class
B)    Nearly swallowing a floating plaster
C)    The constant paranoia of inhaling a mixture of chlorine and urine

I have decided swimming is rubbish.

Anyway the heel seems to be much better thanks to lots of ice, stretching and the discovery of Kinesio sports tape.

With all these steps in place I tested it out on Saturday and was relieved to feel very little pain. Such was my euphoria at being able to run again I even stopped to tell a fellow injured runner who was holding his ankle about it, he looked at me with distrust and disgust like I was employed by Kinseo tape plc such was my enthusiasm and insistence to spell out their company name loudly to him and command him to buy some. Thinking back this could also have been because I was gleefully telling him how I was once injured just like him, before running off. Bah.

Another (and probably the biggest) advantage of sports tape is that I now look like Robocop, if Robocop was played by a balding tramp in a vest and used sports tape as armour rather than metal. Peow Peow!

Christien Corner

We went on a training run last weekend, the night of the super moon, it was foggy and cold on them there cliffs, out of nowhere Dan and I found ourselves running alongside a peculiar chap in a Victorian scientists costume. It seemed a bit strange to be wearing a ‘charity marathon costume’ on a training run at the dead of night, on the cliffs, by himself- but hey, running’s a broad church. We asked what charity he was running for and he started talking this crazy stuff to us as we ran;

“Like a panther cub, I put on my singlet this evening and sprinted headlong into the sea of liberty. Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to hitch up my knee support, mix a sugary drink and swallow a carb gel: the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll. The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term.

But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous.  When I would come back from running excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. I sent forth alone to do his marathon training, It is a task inherently malign and
Villainous; his every act and thought centered on running; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a running buffoon.  Henry Jekyll ran at seven minute miles, And thus his conscience slumbered.”

 

Hang on, I didn’t go running with Dan this weekend? I err? I was, umm? What did I do? Think! Hmm. The last thing I remember is I put on my running shoes. I walked to the fridge. I reached for a lucosade and started to drink it then…Complete blank? Oh well. I might go have another lucosade from the fridge to help me concentrate, hold up these running shoes aren’t mine! AHHHHHHH.