The Week Running up to the Half Marathon

The week running up to my first half marathon was one of many mixed emotions. The pain from Plantar Fasciitis was so constantly niggly and at times totally unbearable that it was draining me and making me really tired. I wasn’t sure whether I was even able to walk the Half Marathon. I had a lovely offer from Natalie to take my place but still I had not mentally given in.  I still wanted to be able to say that I had overcome any hurdles and achieved a half marathon.

The week leading up to the Half Marathon

My sports massage didn’t hurt nearly as much as I expected and Amy gave me hope that I could do it if I wanted to. Yes it may take longer to recover and get back into running than if I just kept on resting but that it shouldn’t cause me any more permanent damage. Now it was just to decide whether I could tolerate the pain. You may have read that I went to Elmore Court – which meant a night walking around in heels. Least they were Hotter Shoes, but even still, up and down all the stairs was not at all good for my poor foot. I generally did the 1km school run in the car and discovered the benefits of ice.

The lovely Catherine from running club and she gave me advice (she had just run the London Marathon): She told me how it was dangerous to run whilst taking ibuprofen as apparently it can dehydrate you and affect the kidneys – so to switch to paracetamol; my compression socks had arrived and she told me to take them off at night to give my feet chance to heal; and she gave me some tape and instructions on how to put it on my foot (also telling me to round the corners to make it less likely to peel off).

Two Days before the Half Marathon

Still undecided I signed up to Marshall for Parkrun and started to hydrate myself. I tested out the tape to make sure it was ok. I tried to read up on carb loading but it seemed so complicated to me (and I didn’t fancy just a bowl of pasta!) although I did eat loads of porridge.

One Day before the Half Marathon

Saturday for Parkrun I was kindly given the closest place to Marshall. It was an amazing day as my teen looked set for an amazing new personal best and kept up with a lad who was in his class at primary for the first 3 laps (whose PB is 20:54) but slowed down for the final lap and even walked a few steps of it. But still he had gone out so fast and done so well that he still got a new PB of 23:16! I mean look at this photo of him powering up a hill – look at how high he gets his knees! He is such an inspiration to me.

Afterwards we went for cake and some of the ladies from running club told me how they didn’t think it was a good idea to run on Sunday and speak to Kelsey who is a fellow plantar fasciitis suffer. One of my main worries was if it meant I couldn’t run on our running holiday – but she soon made me feel better about that!

However, just that small amount of walking was too much for me. I was losing concentration and ended up going home and falling straight to sleep. I ended up missing lunch as then took the children out whilst our boiler was serviced. Then in the afternoon I kept my foot on a block of ice I had frozen in an ice-cream tub until it melted. Whilst also stretching my legs lol (I used the bath for this!). I purchased some paracetamol and got an ice-spray, then went to collect my number – it made it much more real and now I was nervous about whether I would try, it be too much and just look an idiot and have some, “well what did I expect.”

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