Running Again

It’s been two months since I’ve posted on this blog and to be honest it’s a period that I’m glad to put behind me – a particularly tough time from several perspectives, most of which I’m not going to go into on a public forum.  But hey, life is about dealing with the hard times and coming out the other side stronger.  Injury is something I can talk about and it is particularly tough to deal when close to a big target race. The recent back-butt issue is my first ‘serious’ injury in about 5 years, so I am thankful, but the timing was far from ideal.

Simultaneously losing the endorphin buzz and perhaps more importantly focus takes its toll.  Immediately focus switched on getting back, going to several physios and experts in the hope of a swift recovery. The days and weeks passed without progress and with it any hope of maintaining form for the Paris marathon.  It was particularly bad luck – I knew within that I was in the best endurance shape of my life and never got to demonstrate my training and altitude high in a race.  The New York 4 mile wasn’t a true test – icy hilly conditions, poor competition and difficult preparations. The national club cross country was the interim test I was preparing for and looking forward to, but unfortunately all I could do is limp around the course to cheers other on.

I have been referred to as bulletproof by club-mate Eoin Flynn, but that reputation is tarnished now. I did live and train as though I was invincible and that was my downfall. My injury wasn’t an overuse injury, so it would be easy to simply put it down to bad luck. A slip on a wet road could happen to anyone at any time (well, most of the time in Ireland). The reality is if my core and flexibility were better I probably would have been able to handle the slip. Perhaps more importantly the recovery period would have been substantially shorter.  It’s a little ironic as I had started to work on those areas in Colombia. The combination of therapy that eventually worked for me was fortnightly visits to Anthony Geoghegan in Carlow and weekly visits to Vinny Mulvey (www.vinnymulveyfitness.com). Anthony certainly knows his stuff and helped identify and resolve the core issue, while Vinny came in on remedial massage therapy side. I would certainly recommend Vinny – he’s great at explaining reasons for particular treatment, how the athletic body works and at recommending core and flexibility exercises to resolve imbalances. For a light guy he packs a punch and gets stuck in. As a bonus, it's great to get training tips from an athlete who has achieved. Anthony is one of a few top level physios in Ireland – certainly one to attend if you’ve tried others without progress. Only problem is that he’s in such demand there is often a long queue to enjoy the privilege of his company.

Haile Special Edition Adidas Adios

April is a new beginning with optimism returned. I’m back running – yippee! I even have a new flash pairs of road racers – special edition Adidas 'Haile' Adios - matching Rathfarnham colours. Their first outing will have to wait, but hopefully not that long. Plan is to keep up visits to both Vinny and Anthony to keep core and flexibility discipline in check. Also, I have Rathfarnham coach Adam Jones using his new skills to check my posture and weaknesses. Hopefully all this will help to put together another solid injury free training and racing period. Time will tell. I managed to put on quite a few kilos since my injury, but that should shift swiftly.  It will take me a while to get to race shape, but I certainly have time to properly prepare for an autumn marathon.  I can’t help feel what might have been in the Paris marathon, but there is so much more to life than running and sometimes I have to keep perspective in check.

Minnock clan before the madness

The bro Derek hit a big milestone last week – 40. He’s a fresh looking 40 year old, but mentally he had been preparing for this decade for quite a while – few are as sensible as our Derek. Another bro Aidan and his wife Mary had a baby girl Amy recently, so it’s all go with the Minnock clan.

That’s it from me this time – won’t leave it so long to post again!  Final shout out to those running big marathons over the next week – in particularly I’m expecting something a little special from Sean Connolly – training seems to have gone well, so fingers crossed for a big performance tomorrow!