As those of you who follow my running ramblings I am a proud finisher of the London marathon and I loved it 🙂

One think I noticed most in the last ten miles was the number of people pulled up with the biggest blisters I have ever seen, pots of Vaseline were being applied in similar volumes to the paint on the Forth Road bridge. There was also dozens within the last few hundred meters who’s legs had locked out, cramped up and just failed their owners. These are the painful parts of marathon running along with the dreaded wall and exhaustion or over heating.

Now I was maybe getting a little too smug at the fact that I still had pretty feet as the expo masseur told me 🙂 I still had all my toe nails, never had a bruise, blister, blacken toenail or even lost a nail in all my running miles including training and finishing 3 marathons to date.

Wel Monday my old friend DOMS made a visit but the balance of pride and runners high was still in the lead. Tuesday DOMS tipped the balance and it was backward stair descending, slow motion shuffles, gingerly getting on & off the loo hoping I didn’t need a hand from the hubby – who would have laughed ! Wednesday my legs and limbs were relaxing and easing and I was moving around pretty much normally, although no way could I run for a bus.

Then real pain came along totally out of the blue I woke up on Thursday with a cramped/ spasmed calf that was like a cricket ball had been implanted in its place – absolutely rock hard. I couldn’t walk on it without pain -ouch.

I had a massage booked that afternoon and she did her best to try and coax the calf to relax. It was agony and even tender to touch let alone massage. The calf doing an impression of ten cricket ball stayed like that until Sunday. I had been resisting all drugs as I had a police drugs & alcohol test on the Saturday but had to give into Naproxen which did the trick.

So 3 nice relaxed easy days followed, I saw my new triathlon coach who advised light unstructured exercise until May 6th when my half ironman 70.3 training would start. Had a lovely easy 5 mile run in the sun.

Then ….. My blooming back has developed a pain, slept awkwardly, twisted, pulled who knows. So heat packs, hot baths, gentle massage and fingers crossed again it relaxes and eases.

My only thought is that due to the heat and the evidence in heavily salt encrusted tights at end of marathon that my body was breaking down due to excess loss of salts causing the cramps/ spasms/locked muscles.

So you may come out of the 26.2 miles intact with nothing but pride, but the following week my body has felt the effects. My advise is take time to recover from such an ordeal you have put your body through, especially if over (well) 40 as I am !

So 5 days before I enter my next phase of training and focus, please body dispense of pain and respond and recover well !

I can’t have too much more down time as I have already piled on 6lb and feel soft and marshmallow like.