Squeaky shins

I'm going nowhere with my running. It's pretty logical, given that I'm not running. My shin is still bothering me, so I have decided to take the rest of the week off, doing swimming and circuit training at home, while my body decides what the hell it is to do..

It's getting weirder, by the way - yesterday, I noticed that when I lift my right foot my shin makes a squeaky noise!! I thought I was turning into an alien, but then I looked it up and discovered that apparently it is called 'crepitum', and it may occur in cases where the tendons are inflamed...

Someone braver than me recorded the same phenomenon in his own shin, and put it on youtube:




Does this still count as a "shiny" start to my marathon plan?

Shin splints and pantry moths

A week of non-running, except for a nice 8km on Thursday. I got a mild cold over last weekend, and decided to avoid running Sun-Mon-Tue as a precaution. On Wednesday, I was feeling better, but childcare duties kept me at bay.


I then went for a run on Thursday morning, and later in the afternoon I started developing a sharp pain in my right shin. I thought I might have previously hit it, while carrying my son's bags and skateboard on the bike uphill from his school back home -  but it got worse and worse. Two days later, it still hurts a lot and it's now even a bit swollen. It didn't help that I spent this afternoon cleaning the deck and cutting tree branches in the garden, of course.

I looked it up - apparently it's a typical runner issue, due to over training. Neither box was ticked, as I only had one moderate run on Thursday, and never experienced this kind of problem before. Then, I realised it could have been the shoes I was wearing - just two days before I had bought a pair of new sandals - Orthaheel Waveslide - looked cool and comfy, and discounted. But they are too archy, with a significant drop,

After two days without running, today my shin hurts more than ever - after a full day wearing those sandals! I've read that high heels in general are not good on the shins ... So, I'll put them on ebay, and buy a pair of proper ozzie flip-flops.

 During the week, I've kept working on my core at home, and today I did a quick but efficient swim session at the pool. At breakfast, we found a few moths in the kitchen pantry (and in our cereals..), so we went to buy one of those sticky traps.





The pantry looked quite when I walked in. I proceeded to opening the trap, and while I was still fidgeting with it, a little cloud of flying beings started to surround me... I suddenly felt like a character in the movie Avatar.

So far, we've counted 14 moths stuck on the gluey sheets!




Hopefully, next week I'll manage to write more about my running and less about my kitchen shenanigans.

In the beginning

Back to the Park Run after a long absence, it was nice to run with a bunch of happy people and to be challenged into no sinking. Did not know what to expect, given the non-training - but I liked to think that running 5k at around 3.40 per minute was possible.

Turns out I was right, as I did clock in 18.45 overall - which is not average 3.40mk/km, true, but that's because the first 2km went cautiously at 3.50 average. I was feeling OK though, so I  sped up a bit, caught up with a couple of fast starters, running the last 3km at 3.40 sharp. I usually tend to slow down towards the end, while today I was full of beams on the finish line- so that was good.

Now, it could be pointed out that in 24 weeks I am expecting myself to run a whole marathon at a faster pace than I did 5 km today. That's a fair comment, but it ignores where I am coming from. I just went through my Garmin history, and noticed that in 2017 I never ran more than 30 km in a week. In fact, I did not even make it to running 10km all at once. This could add to the "You are a fool" party, but also could support a more ethereal idea, according to which I am fresher than I would have been had I ran like crazy last year, and despite a total of ten training session in 2018 (averaging 30mins each..), I can put my shoes on and run 3.40mins per km.

I don't know what's going to happen or how I am going to do this - which is great! The plan is, obviously, to increase the weekly load - there isn't much more to do, in order to run a marathon. The real risk is to do too much too soon, which would end with me injured and depressed.

The strategy, for now, is to run 4-5 sessions per week, increasing the daily load of 1 km each week. This week I run 9km per session (every other day, so 4 sessions/week), so next week I'll take that to 10km, then 11 etc. One speed work out per week (will probably do a lot of fartlek), and then either the Saturday Parkrun or the Monday tempo runs with the folks from WAMC. I'll definitely focus on quantity rather than quality, including what Canova calls junk miles.

In the background, lots of work especially on the posterior kinetic chain (i.e. glute bridges, single leg squats - plus side-planks for hip-stabilisation) to keep my crazy calves at bay. A couple of 10ks in the near future (this and this) will tell me how much of a fool I am :)

Getting rid of the cobwebs

A good run yesterday with the folks from the Western Australian Marathon Club. They meet every Monday evening at Point Walter, a great spot along the Swan River, just south of Perth. You get to meet like-minded people, enjoy a beautiful scenery, train your stamina, and get a glimpse into how billionaires live (google image “Melville Beach Road” for an idea).

Monday night they schedule tempo runs of various lengths, so I joined in and run with a couple of dudes how were doing the 8 km. We started at around 4.20 pace, chatting about Italy’s non-elections and the WA running scene. After 5 km, I increased the pace progressively and ended up running the last 3 km at 3.40-45, without stressing. Felt nice. Overall, just under 12km.

In less than six months, I am supposed to run 42km at around 3.30. Here are some positives about the current situation:

1. I’m in a reasonably good shape. Have not put any weight on, still at around 62 kg as when I was 20, I think I could skim a couple of kilos of that, if/once the weekly km go up
2. No major physical issues. My calves remain a bit stiff, but hopefully I’m doing the right work to keep them at bay 
3. Despite a chronic lack of consistency, it seems that once I manage to line up a few runs (I think I have had around 10 runs over the past 2 months, and never over 8km) my body gets set for running at decent paces (see yesterday). So, I’m not starting from total scratch
4. I am working from home at the moment, so I can organise my days pretty easily, do lots of core work at home (using the Pomodoro Technique, 25 mins writing and 5 minutes working out - more on this later), eat well, and even sneak in a power nap in the afternoon if all the stars are aligned

On the downside, I have no idea how (if!) I will manage heavier running loads. At the moment, at a mere 30km a week, everything is like a pleasant stroll. But when (if!) I’ll get to do 30 km in one day, it’ll be very tough – and I have no idea how my 40 year-old body will cope with that. 

Also, six months (actually, just under 24 weeks) is a long time, and it will be hard to keep focused and maintain the motivation to run like a crazy person amidst work, family etc. And the risk of over-training will be one of the major threats to fend off - e.g. I will have to be very careful with increasing the running load over the weeks.

That said, the goal for this month is to stick to 8-10km per session, 4 times per week. Do lots of core work, especially on glutes, which have been flattened by years of philosophising on my ass. Trying to run a bit faster every now and then, and enjoy life.

Can I possibly do it?

This blog documents my attempt to run a marathon under 2hours and 30 minutes, and to do so with less than 6 months of training. I thought this attempt deserved a blog, for the details of this plan are, to say the least, ambitious, to the point I don't know how realistic the whole thing is.

Here's the background. I'm 40 year-old, and by the day of the race I will be already 41.
I have two kids, and a wife, who exert the amount of demands on me that any other middle-aged dad experiences day after day.
I live in Australia, though I grew up in Italy.

I haven't run properly for a very long time, though I was a "serious runner" as a teen-ager (68.08 in the half-marathon, 32.00 on 10,000m track). But I have never trained "seriously" since then, by which I mean following a training plan, doing different workouts, not to mention races.

In fact, over the past 10 years I have been unable to run consistently for more than a few weeks per time. Family, work (I'm an academic) and bilateral calf-pain have taken the best of my 30s. No regrets, for I had more important things to do than running anyway. Now things are somewhat settled, I seemed to have worked out the issue with my calves (too much sitting on my ass), I can navigate my life between family and work. Of course, things can dramatically change in just a second, in which case I'll change (i.e. abandon) my marathon plan.

The idea behind this blog is to share my training ideas with other people, and to somewhat use myself as a guinea-pig. The marathon is in less than 6 months, as already mentioned, so it would not be inappropriate to call this a mission impossible. That said, easy things are not exciting, and there's plenty of non-exciting stuff already in our lives!

So, stay tuned.