42 weeks, 54 miles and an infrequent but valuable battle with pain

I covered 10 laps of my usual 5.4 mile loop this week. The festive period was a complete break from running which I felt I needed. For the last 15 years or so, I have always ran on Christmas day. I usually associate the hour I’d spend on largely traffic free roads with being quieter than the rest of the year and a rare opportunity to have the streets entirely to myself for that time.

I haven’t given it the same significance this year. I think because I have warmed to night or early morning running this year it was going to be less of a change. I was also conscious of being on track for running over 250 days out of the year and while my wife and her side of the family largely turn a blind eye to this, they do all value Santa Time as something we are meant to spend together!

I did two laps on Thursday and Friday followed by three more on both weekend days. My issue on the outside of my right foot recurred briefly throughout the week but disappeared after short breaks. Other than this, there wasn’t much strain to any of the running this week and it largely felt like I was just maintaining a reasonable weekly mileage for a taper. There was never any point where I felt I wouldn’t be able to finish a loop due to the foot pain but I was careful not to drag myself along at anything resembling a faster pace than I needed.

I listened to some great podcasts and drew some inspiration from various NFL sources about mental toughness as well as a Bad Boy Running Podcast with an American guy called Ian McNamara who somehow willed himself through a 5:58 marathon having only used resistance training and one training run as preparation. There was a great camaraderie element to this story and I hope having two pacers for the 100 next year will provide me with some of the psychological support that he received from his friends.

I am pleased that I managed to navigate my running for this week without my foot issue progressing into something more serious. One of the first quotes I found that got me into marathon training was about everyone who enters long distance races goes through some sort of pain but the people who finish marathons being the ones who find a place to put it. I found a variation on this theme from Scott Jurek which I think emphasises the point well.