With a fantastic diet of: 2 pancakes, a chicken sandwich, protein shake and a slice of toast, I was under fuelled and ready to run. After a quick conversation with my guide runner he was unable to make it. Dammit I wanted to hit the tarmac.

Near my house there is a small strip of tarmac around 1.6 miles long that is perfect. Wide path, no lampposts and more importantly no pedestrians. I decided without my guide runner this strip of asphalt may be possible. After persuading my wife I wouldn’t die she reluctantly dropped me at the far end.

With no assistance apart from the thumping beat of Jay-Z I began my run. The first mile I had to hug the curb to avoid a few trees, after a long curve to the right time to swap to the left of the path. Reaching the end of the first mile I had a rush of excitement, for the first time in over 2 years I was running on my own.

No guide runner, no cane, no GPS just me and my iPhone. The way it used to be. It was a fantastic feeling and I wish it had lasted. But the burning of my lungs began at the 3 mile marker and I took a little rest. The run wasnt over yet, I had to get to the pick up point another 1.5 miles away. I dug deep and completed the run.

Overall the run was a fantastic reminder of what is possible. It is far to easy to become over reliant on the assistance and aids provided. I will continue to push myself to see what is possible.

100 miles will be mine.

My return to running has been far more difficult than anticipated. The ankle pain has gone but taken my stamina alone too.

I figured a couple of runs and I would be back at full strength, instead nearing the 3 mile mark yesterday I felt my lungs collapsing. Where did it all go wrong? A month ago I was happy with my goal of a 100 mile run next year. Now the thought seems impossible; I can’t even run 3 miles!

My guide runner graciously stopped running during my injury in the hope we would stay at the same level. This didn’t pan out as hoped, as he seems to be coping with the return far better than I. As I struggle on the familiar home straights he stretches out and runs ahead.

Starting so far back in my training programme is incredibly demoralising, 2 months hard work wiped out by an awry foot strike. Damn you Bawtry Road and your crappy paving!

While my ankle continues to heal I find my blog posts have dropped off. Until my injury I hadn’t realised how important and reliant I had become on my running. With my vision difficulties and my wife working through the week, I rarely leave the house. So my main outlet for fitness and socialising was my running.

My guide runner has been coming round to visit in the day times, but it simply isn’t the same. Venturing out and running the local streets gave me the freedom I strive for. The injury is having a serious impact. In an effort to hit the streets quicker I have ordered a Vulkan ankle brace. This should allow me to run through part of the recovery period.

This also means I will miss my first ever competitive race. It was schedules for next week, I am confident I could complete the small distance, but the prospect of further injury and a slow time is not appealing. So regrettably I will miss the race in the hopes of coming back stronger later in the year.

On the hottest day of the year I began the long walk to the start line. My sister was running/walking in the Race For Life 5km. With the closest parking being just over a mile away it was the first test for my ankle. Pain free we arrived at the staging area.

My sister was already in the starting area so we were quickly trying to make our way to the front so her 2 boys could see the start. Hoisted above my head we caught a quick glimpse of my sister as the race began.

Knowing the competitive women would post great a time we made our way over to the finish line. 18 minutes had passed and not a runner in sight, I put this down to the heat and terrain as in local races the competitive women usually post around 16-17 mins.

Around the 23 minute mark the first competitor reached the home straight, with a rouse of applause they crossed the line. It would be another 1 minute 30 before second place. As the time ticked by many of the more athletic women began to collapse and vomit a mere 50m from the finish line. The heat and dehydration seemed to be affecting a number of the female competitors.

Watching the dehydrated women made me wonder how I will complete a 100m race. Will I be this ill? Rather than this being an off putting thought it inspired me to enter some competitive races. I want to push myself to the limit and beyond like these women were.

My sister completed the race with a final sprint and a time of 46 minutes, a great time for my sister as she only began running 2 weeks ago.

The injury is healing quickly thanks to compression and rest, so I am quietly hopeful I may make my race in a couple of weeks. I have revised my target time to a 25 minute for the 5k as this injury has meant no speed work for a month.

On my last run I was nursing a painful foot/ankle. After resting for over a week I was still unable to put my full body weight on my right ankle. Begrudgingly I headed to the Dr’s.

A quick diagnosis of an ankle sprain seemed simple. Thankfully nothing was broken I was happy and assumed I would be back on the road in a matter of days. Turns out I had no idea how serious ankle sprains can be, up to 3 months recovery. Upon hearing the news my heart sank, 18 weeks of training had come to an end. I would miss my first ever race and may even be out the entire summer.

On the way home from the Dr’s I bought a couple of ankle supports and sat down for some internet research. All the information I found confirmed what the Dr had told me, a long recovery time with little chance of a speedy recovery. I did manage to pickup a few tips, so hopefully with the use of the RICE method and a good 1-2 week rest I should be back.

For those interested the RICE method involves:

R- Rest
I – Ice
C – Compression
E – Elevation

My summer workout is going to take some modification as I would like to try and retain my fitness levels during the recovery period. So I will be hitting the weights hard over the next 2 weeks.

Increasing performance is something that you work on over time. Changing a few methods here, fiddling with the diet there, a change of equipment, a whole host of changes contribute towards increased performance.

For myself it works slightly differently, as my performance is not dictated by my own actions, but by the joint performance of me and my guide runner.

If I feel particularly fresh I cant simply sprint ahead and put in a faster mile or even do a sprint finish. I move along at my guide runners pace. Which of course in turn means my guide runners pace is also dictated by my performance.

This makes for a very interesting and unique relationship, we can only perform better as a unit. This is proving especially difficult as I am currently injured. This was highlighted in our last run where our pace was the slowest to date.

With our performance being so dependant on the other, failure is not an option. Stopping mid run means letting the other person down, not to mention a long walk home. So regardless of pain, exhaustion and dehydration the runs are completed.

Our last run was especially painful as I am currently sporting an ankle injury. For the last 2 miles it was simply a case of pain management, I completed the run with the thought, “Must not stop, I cannot let the team down!”.

With the summer in full swing its time to up my workout schedule. Not only will I be increasing the miles but introducing a number of CrossFit workouts and sprints. The schedule is as follows:

Monday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Tuesday – Run
Wednesday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Thursday – Run
Friday – Pull-ups, CrossFit
Saturday – Sprints, CrossFit
Sunday – Run

This schedule does seem a little packed but with a lot of sleep and great nutrition I am confident I will see gains.

I will be following a Hal Higdon schedule for my running and aiming to be at half marathon distance in around 6 weeks time.

I will be utilising CrossFit and also a CrossFit playing card deck for the strength training.

For pull-ups I will be following the 20 Pull-Up Challenge.

So thats the schedule I post mainly to open the doors to any friends, friends of friends, random readers of the blog that would like to team up during the summer months. Be it by training in person or simply keeping track of each others progress online.

I am flexible on the times for any of the workouts and will do an AM/PM split. So leave or comment or drop me a line to workout!

The accumulation of 14 weeks of training ended on Sunday with our 10k run. Using the dreadmill and the roads Scott and I had worked up from running an earth shattering 1 min splits all the way to 10k. Our goal began as a simple 5k run, when we achieved this with ease we rose the bar. Our new goal is marathon distance by sep/oct. To aid in this goal we decided to have a rest week.

The rest week didn’t exactly pan out. Instead we racked up our highest mileage in a 7 day period. So with 3 days until our new running schedule begins the rest has officially begun.

With a new schedule comes a new diet, my current diet runs at a negative 5600 cals a week. Far from healthy and explains my fatigue recently. So the new diet is a large calorie increase. The extra cals will be coming mainly from nuts and lean protein sources and maybe a pancake or two!

I will be trotting out FitDay to track calories and if there is any demand at all will post a weekly diet plan.

I have been looking forward to running my first 10k for around 6 weeks. My guide runner and I have been training hard, determined to put in a good time. So when I awoke this morning and it hurt to stand there was no way I was missing this run.

The pain was mainly on my heels, this makes running slightly easier as my footfall is front/mid so I never strike my heal. So I was quietly confident this wouldnt be an issue. The journey to the drop off point was full of chatter about how the rain may effect us, did I mention it was raining? Boy was it raining.

Exiting the car we began being pelted with rain, no matter it wont get much worse I’m sure of it! We began the run with a steady pace repeating aloud the mantra, “keep it slow, keep it slow”. The first mile was a breeze, then the rain really hit us.

Huge drops of rain that could surely fill a shot glass, instantly our clothes became a chafing second skin. There was nothing else to do but laugh. Why did we think summer clothes would be appropriate for this run?

We crashed into the puddles as they grew in size, trying to dodge the splash or at least get a sneaky hit on each other. By now our shoes were soaked through, but hey at least we were halfway.

Passing the 3 mile marker we both found a second wind, our stride length increased as did our pace. Scott bounded into a swimming pool of a puddle, shooting dirty cold water right up my shorts, great a wet crotch! With our 1.5 mile marker rapidly approaching we decided to head home the back way, a long gradual incline followed by a slight decline.

As we dropped into single file we hit water slightly deeper than anticipated. With the puddles being deeper than our shoes it made running difficult. So we quickly hopped onto the road and ran the white line. My iPhone signalled the final 400m so we up the pace and finish on a high.

A record of 50:37 for our first 10k, injured and in the rain. Proud of that time!

Todays run was special for 2 reasons, its my birthday and I had new Nike gear to wear.

Sporting my new Dri Fit Nike short sleeve we headed out on a 2 mile “sprint”. We walked to the edge of my housing estate and began our run, overzealous we began a furious pace.

Being willed on by my new Nike threads we hit the long hill leaving the village. We achieved a mystifying 7:44 pace on an incline. Rounding parrots corner for the next uphill stage we were beginning to lag.

As mentioned numerous times I run shoulder to shoulder with my guide runner. However this particular uphill has a few unique traits which allow me to take point.

The hill is made up of a thin path flanked at both sides by grass. This allows me to correct my position depending on footfall and the feel of the grass. Feeling the long strands of grass on my left leg the next foot strike is a correction to the right. Repeating the process of minor corrections allows me to run point for a .75 mile stretch.

Running point is a great psychological boost, dictating pace and direction for once I am the guide runner.

The pace proved a little adventurous for my guide runner and we decided to take a little breather. I continued to take point which proved a little hazardous as I ran into the road and into oncoming traffic. Undeterred and with a quick correction we were home stretch bound!

Finishing the run we began to dissect our pace. We decided energy conservation is our new mantra. Heading out of the gate too fast always results in poor performance. Start slow finish fast!