Today I woke up at 12pm, because I hadn’t set an alarm.

It’s Long Run Sunday.

Gosh, this hasn’t happened for a while.

Since coming back from San Francisco I’ve had two physio sessions and a meeting with my coach. My physio has been allowing me to go with my self-diagnosis of ‘calf strain and shin splints’ for the name of what’s wrong, but I’m not sure he genuinely agrees that’s the problem – he’s a bit unconventional and is occasionally a bit like the other sort of therapist:

“Well what do you think is wrong?”

“I think I have a general calf strain, and maybe the beginnings of shin splints?”

“Yes, well let’s call it that then”

Anyway. He has fired electro-therapy into my legs twice this week amongst other things. Between that and a lot of icing, stretching, and ibuprofen gel-ing the problem has gone from there being pain in so many areas I couldn’t have told you where it hurt the most, to it really just being the original area of pain still hanging around. Its a lot better.

So much so that when I saw my coach we were all set to put in place a run/walk strategy for NYC and have me still go for it, slow, steady, dressed as Wonder Woman and having a blast.

However, that’s not going to happen.

What I didn’t mention before is that I wasn’t the only one who had a bad leg in San Francisco. Despite still running, Mr. Duff noticed that he was getting tightness in his leg more than usual, and red patches on his skin. He got it checked out when we got home, and he’s now being treated for a DVT in his calf.

Which means flying to New York in a couple of weeks is out of the question.

Which means neither of us will be running the New York Marathon.

It’s ok. For once a household of two marathon runners is perfectly fine with the fact that a marathon has been cancelled for them. The running really isn’t the important thing here. Something like this puts everything else into pretty sharp relief; not getting to run 26.2 miles for fun really isn’t the worst thing in this scenario. We’ll get over it, and probably defer it til next year.

Before we made the decision not to fly out, part of the conversation with my coach about whether or not I would run New York if we did defer til next year was what sort of strategy we would go for. Part of the reason I was trying to push on despite being a bit crocked is because I was really looking forward to having a rest from marathons after London in April.

The injuries I have at the moment are your basic common or garden overuse injuries. Basically I’ve underestimated how hard it is to run back to back marathons, and overestimated my own physical strength.

All this boils down to the fact that over the coming weeks until the London plan starts I’ll be investigating different cross training methods. I’m also considering a non-traditional marathon plan which involves lower long run mileage and more technique or drills type sessions. I’ve already tried a yoga class for runners which felt like it was doing me good, and I think this is a sensible way to go.

Less impact, more strength. A bit more time for care and well being. And hopefully a happier and healthier runner.

I’ll report back if I find anything good.