There's nothiing like a nice snappy catchy blog post title, and that was nothing like a....one of them.
Well its now been over 7 weeks since I injured my right hamstring. The first 3 weeks were a bit rocky, with re-injury and scar tissue to break down, but since then its all been a case of slowly building confidence and gradually picking up speed.
During those 7 weeks I have actually run 24 times, so its not like I haven't been out running, but the one thing that had to stop for most of that period was any running that I would consider "pushing it" or "challenging". For the previous few months I had been doing intervals, hills, sprints and anything else that I could think of to help me improve. But that all stopped until about 10 days ago.
My last 2 parkruns (1 and 3 weeks ago) have been 59 seconds and 44 seconds off my best parkrun time. Gradually heading in the right direction, but still someway off the times I was easily managing prior to that.
Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to start pushing it a bit again. I have run a handfull of interval sessions, running at or faster than my best 5km pace for 1km at a time. And during the last week I have even been running at full speed downhill, which is how I got the injury in the first place.
I no longer think its a case of "fingers crossed" when I go out to run at pace, it now feels like I am fully recovered and ready to give it my all and get back closer to my best parkrun times. I still expect it to take a couple more weeks before I am pushing for a PB, but I certainly hope to be back withing 30 seconds of my PB this week.
If I am honest with myself I think I am probably looking at around 18:15 tomorrow (within 25 seconds of my PB). Any time close to there or (even better) under that time will help to convince me that I am ready to push on towards my PB again.
I know it is going to be hard work tomorrow, but that has never put me off where running is concerned and I have missed that feeling of pushing it so much over the last 7 weeks that I am right ready for the burn.
Looking forward to a good parkrun tomorrow. Hopefully I stay injury free and get back towards my best times.
