Update

The last time I wrote anything was after dropping out of the Fukuoka marathon at around the 33km mark. It was obviously a huge blow for me as I felt like I was really having a breakthrough day. I was felt like I was running easily I only had to run 69 minutes for the last half to run a pb. Obviously just getting a pb wasn’t what I was aiming for. I was aiming to break 2.10 and going through halfway in 64.28 set me up really nicely for that. Getting the stitch was a really tough thing for me. I used to get them a few years ago but the last time I got one when I was racing was back in 2008 during the world cross. They are really tough to get rid of if they are bad enough and the one I had just kept developing into more and more pain. Having to stop was gut wrenching for me. Once I got back to the hotel I talked to Julie and I could hardly say anything. It felt like the biggest disappointment of my career. After a few hours of relaxing and talking to Jurrie, I came to realise that I was having an amazing day and what happened was something that I couldn’t control. I got renewed faith in myself knowing that I can run at that pace and it made me anxious to race again soon.

That night there was a big banquet with some incredible food on offer to us. There was a huge hall with stations all around the room to go and chose your food from and I indulged quite a bit. I think I tasted everything. We headed out to an English pub that was close by but Fasil and I headed back to the hotel pretty early as we started to get really tired. Jurrie and I had an early morning flight the next day anyway so it was probably a good idea to turn in.

I met Jurrie and Taku (Mizuno representative) in the lobby of the hotel the next morning and we headed to the airport for our flight to Osaka. Mizuno had arranged for me to have a couple of days in Osaka to visit the headquarters and do some testing. Once we arrived in Osaka we got a taxi out to the Mizuno headquarters which was a massive building out by the docks. We had lunch on the 30th floor I think which showed you a panoramic view of the whole city. It was quite spectacular. We then headed over to the design team headquarters to get me geared up for some movement testing and foot analysis. This was very cool for me as this is an aspect of the industry that I am very interested in. They filmed me running from behind and captured my foot motion with a high speed camera so that they could slow the image down and see exactly how I strike the ground. It was very interesting to find that I heal strike with my left leg and midfoot strike and slightly pronate on my right. This made sense with areas that I find get tight often after hard runs. I was then suited up in some lycra and had reflective balls placed all over me so that they could capture my exact running motion. This was really cool as once we were finished I could watch a stick figure of me running on the screen. The last thing we did was get exact measurements of my feet by placing them in a box that reproduces a 3D picture of my foot. All the testing showed that I was wearing the right shoes which was good to know.

We then got dropped off in the middle of Osaka at the Hilton we were staying at and Jurrie and I headed out to find some food. We made our restaurant choice by walking down a random back alley, choosing a random restaurant and then pointing at a random item on the menu. This turned out to be great as what we ordered was really good. We had an early night that night and I passed out right away.

The next day, we had a Miznuo employee, Kumiko come meet us and take us to the nearby historic city of Kyoto. We were met at the station by a tour guide and she took us to all these amazing areas of the city that were incredibly interesting. Jurrie and I bought a bunch of souvenirs on the way out and after we had dropped off our stuff at the hotel back in Osaka, we headed into the main shopping area of Osaka with Kumiko and let her decide on where we were eating. I said I wanted to try all the Osaka specialties so we found a place that I had actually seen on the Anthony Bourdain travel show. We had a lot of food that was really tasty and then headed to an Irish bar that I had been to a few years ago when I was competing in the world champs. We had quite a late night so it was great to get back to bed and get some sleep before another long day the next day.

I was met at 8am the next morning by Michiyo, who is the head of running promotions for Mizuno. She wanted to do some filming with me running by Osaka castle and show me a bit more of the city. We spent some time at the castle and then got a water taxi down the river to the big Mizuno store downtown. She gave me a really nice down jacket from the store to keep me warm during the Flagstaff winter. She then walked me to the hotel and then I got ready to get the bus out to the airport for my flight back to the USA. The flight was quite painless as I slept for most of it. I never sleep on planes but I was so tired from only getting a few hours of sleep that it was no problem for me this time.

I arrived back in Phoenix around 3pm and headed straight up the mountain to Flagstaff. Julie and I were leaving for our honeymoon the next day so I had to dump all my clothes and then repack everything for our week in Cancun. I spent most of the next day catching up on work and then we headed down the mountain to spend the night in Phoenix before having to leave for the airport at 5 am. Of course at this point the jet lag kicked in and I fell asleep at around 4 am. I actually didn’t feel too bad off of one hour of sleep as I knew I didn’t have to worry about training for another week or so.

We arrived in Cancun, Mexico in the afternoon and getting to the hotel was amazing. We were greeted with champagne and a room upgrade which set the tone for the week. Our room was overlooking the ocean and there was a Jacuzzi right by the glass doors to the balcony. We had paid for all inclusive and it was a 5 star resort so I made it a mission of mine to get the most out of everything. That meant eating steak everyday, drinking in the afternoon and taking advantage of the room service. We spent most of the week at the hotel as there was plenty to do but we did get out and do a zip line and ATV tour one of the days. That was a lot of fun and we also got to finish off the day with a swim in a cenote, a cove type hole in the ground with warm water and a zip line leading into it. But alas, it had to end sometime and we were both sad to leave. We had to get back to the real world at some point so we arrived back in Phoenix a week after leaving and prepared ourselves for going back to work. The fun wasn’t over though. That night we went to a party at Julie’s brothers house and then the next night was Julie’s work party so that was a nice transition back to the cold weather of Flagstaff.

The next day for me meant the start of training which was a little tough after 2 weeks of doing nothing and doing my best to put on weight. At one point in Cancun I weighed myself and I was 161 pounds. This was quite a shock as I had arrived at my race weight of 143 pounds! I think my body needed it though as I hadn’t indulged like that for years.

The first week back running was fine and I even did a workout of 3*2 miles with Fasil and Scott that went really well. I still felt strong which was a good confidence booster. This last week was tough for me as I was going through some ups and downs with how I was feeling. Some days I was really tired and some days I was fine. It also snowed a lot so I was predominantly in the gym doing all my runs on the treadmill. Mid week, a tendon by my ankle started to get tight but I didn’t really worry about it until I started this weeks training and I could only warm up and had to stop as it was aching quite a lot. I have experienced this same thing last year when I was training for London so I knew what to do. I was still running a lot then as I didn’t want to stop running but this time I have a lot more time so I have just been in the gym working hard on the bike so that it gets 100% better before I start the marathon training in a months time. Julie has been treating my foot everyday and it has made a big difference. I am going to try and run on the anti gravity treadmill today to see how it feels. This way I’ll know if I can transition back into running or not. I actually haven’t minded being on the bike because I work really hard on my cross training so that I can be strong when I start back running. I spend 2 hours in the gym in the morning doing some cycling and circuits and then another 2 hours in the evening doing workouts on the spinning bikes. The one thing that is playing on my mind (although I know it shouldn’t) is losing the last 5 pounds to get back to normal body weight. When your training it’s very hard to eat a little less to lose some weight. I know once I get back to full training the weight will fall off but it is hard not to think about it. I think the key here is going to be not getting on the scales for a while so as not to worry about it.

A few hours later…

This morning I got onto the anti gravity treadmill for 10 miles working my way from 70% body weight up to 100% by the end. I spent most of the run at 90% and my leg felt fine. Once I got home and finished my circuits it started to ache so I am currently sitting with my leg in a bucket of hot water and Epsom salts before I ice it and then head to the Summit center so I can get some iontophoresis on it to reduce the swelling and help get rid of the pain. If it feels ok after tonight’s Alter G run then I will try and run the steady state run that I was supposed to do on Monday in the morning.