Tuesday, July 16, 2013

After the Event

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind since the marathon!

I was back at work two days after, and had to prepare my presentation for the Utopia Women's Wellness Expo the following weekend.  Utopia was a blast - I had a great time hanging out at the parkrun stand and really enjoyed presenting too.  It was a great vibe and just a fun day all round!

I've also been so humbled and encouraged by all the amazing feedback to my marathon story.  I'm sure most of you wonderful blog readers have already come across my video on Facebook, but here it is again.

I'm so glad I took a video of the run - it's great to have captured the raw emotion.  I laugh at how fresh & chirpy I am at the start, compared to how drained and exhausted I am at the end!  I guess that's what you get after 4.5 hours of running!

Before the marathon, and for a few days afterwards, I said NEVER AGAIN.  But so many of the comments I've gotten have inspired me and planted the seed that maybe I will do another one.  Not in the near future, but never say never.

Recovery-wise, my muscles took almost a week to get back to normal.  I was hobbling and in a lot of pain in my legs for a few days.  Once that eased, the shin pain returned (I kind of expected that, but aaargh!!!  So annoying!!!), so I haven't run yet.

We are heading off on a bit of a family road trip holiday tomorrow, and the plan is to run Newy parkrun on Saturday morning, and the 10km at the Hunter Valley Running Festival on Sunday.  I'm not sure yet if my shins will hold up, but fingers crossed.  I'm itching to get back out there.

I think I'll have to find another form of exercise to focus on in the short-term, to give my shins a break, and a chance to recover properly.  I still really want to get under 1:50 for a half marathon this year, and even possibly run a half marathon event with the pram.  But if that's not realistic with getting my injury sorted, I'm happy to put that off until next year.

I feel like I have a lot of toning and trimming to do, so I'll aim for that for now, and slowly get back into running.  Hopefully that will allow me to get back to running at Sandgate parkrun every fortnight - while I'm always there, I haven't actually run there in ages now, and I can't wait to do it again.

I'll keep you posted!  In the meantime, keep running :-)

2 comments:

  1. Have fun on your road trip and don't have any expectations with those races. One of our first time marathoners was back at speed session yesterday and was surprised at how weak she felt and how hard the session was compared with before the marathon. It takes a couple of months for complete recovery so it's important not to overdo it and risk injury.

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  2. What an amazing achievement, Vanessa. your video is great too. I hope you can bask in your glory for a while yet.
    Regan

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