First off, a massive thank you to Kirsten, Nick & Heath, Dave and Sarah for your extremely generous sponsorship – thank you very much indeed, it is very appreciated! I have finally passed the £900 mark and I am 70% of the way there! Hurray!! On the downside I think that most of the people I was hoping would sponsor me already have, so if I’m going to do it, it’s going to have to be from people I’m not expecting. Uh oh.
On with today’s post. I haven’t been out since that horrible 16 mile run a week ago last Sunday. Last week I had tummy problems which were also, really weirdly, causing me extreme dizziness. Every time I moved my head it was like the room was spinning! Thankfully that passed by Friday and I was all set to go out running on Saturday for my long run, but I had tummy troubles again. All advice is not to go running if you do.
That’s not what is bothering me though – it’s my neck and my knees. My neck was getting better but has flared up again in the last few days; I can’t stand for long as it starts hurting, let alone run. And my knees – I had hoped they would be better now after my run but they’re just not improving. It is actually very worrying. They had been a little bit sore before that super long run but I could run through it.
I have my half marathon race at Silverstone race track (home of Formula 1 in the UK) *this Sunday* which I will of course run (subject to obvious health problems like if I caught a nasty cough or flu) and if my knee gets worse, I guess I’ll just have to walk or run walk some of it. I *need* to do at least three more very long runs (minimum 18 miles, preferably 20) before the actual marathon but if I have to skip one of those to save my knees for the big day, I will.
May or may not head out for a run this week in the evening.. will probably be worth seeing just how bad my knees are at any rate! Stupid knees. I seem to recall they did this last time and the pain went away – it was just down to the unexpected activity and once they were stronger it was fine. The problem is usually caused by an increase in mileage and I’ve certainly been doing that of late. So fingers crossed this is only a temporary setback.
In other news I have been experimenting with ways to let everyone know where I am when I run the marathon. I’ll be doing a test run of it at Silverstone. Basically I’ve found an application for my phone which I can use to press a button and it tweets my location as a Google Maps URL. I can also upload photos too and get it to update Facebook! Which sounds perfect. Keep an eye open for a post later in the week telling you how you can see my running commentary on my running!
