Backing off a bit

For the first time in a number of years, we didn't make the trek to the domain for the Mother's Day run today. This race has become a bit of a tradition in our family. The first year we ran it, all the kids agreed to come and join in. Since then, Micro has run it with his mum every year and it's been their special race.

This time last year, tiger angel was preparing for her soon-to-be-best-ever half marathon, and ran the MD race both for Micro and also as a final hit-out. Unfortunately, her hip chucked a hissy-fit about 500m from the finish and the rest is history. She still ran the half the next week (in a personal worst time and a lot of pain), and is only this year starting to recover from the damage.

As I mentioned a few posts back, we are both entered for the SMH half again this year, and even though I am obviously not going to run it now, it has been tiger angel's main goal. As she is still dealing with some of the same hip issues, she's sacrificed a few lesser goals (such as the TriNSW Club Champs) so as to best optimise her chances of doing the half. A few weeks back, she decided that, tradition and family bonding notwithstanding, the Mother Day run would have to go too.

Alas, all for naught, as last week her long run aggravated all the same pain points and it was clear that she just wasn't going to last the distance. There's a structural weakness there (the result of an accident 4 years ago) that has to be constantly strengthened, and at the moment it isn't strong enough. As she's a whole lot more intelligent than this little Gnome, she's not going to blindly push on, but rather chose the path of re-evaluation and re-direction.

For the new few months, her aim is to build a better base with all the weaker bits sorted and strengthened. There'll only be one swim and one bike session each week combined with three run sessions and lots of other exercises. "Goal" races are right out of the picture. The aim will be to just enjoy exercising again. If a race comes along that looks like fun and appears to be do-able, then it'll be run. If not, then not!

Given that my re-entry to the world of exercise (when it comes) is going to require a long slow ramp up, I'm looking forward to being able to 'play' with my beloved again without the pressure of major races looming over everything we do. As always, there's a lot to look forward to :-)

Gnome