From the middle of January, the training was coming on really well. I went out on a 6 mile run with my colleague Annabel, which we did in just under an 60 minutes. We were really happy with this as we did a whole mile more than the last time we went running together, which was before Christmas. Showing improvements! :) The mileage has now bumped up to 10-12 miles at the weekends which is getting tough to stay motivated when your running for almost 2 hours. I always try to think of why I am running the marathon to help with this.

Unfortunately, over the last week I have sustained a knee injury along with a hip problem which I have had for a while. This means that I will be out of running for a good 2-3 weeks. Although this is very frustrating, I am being treated everyday by the amazing physiotherapists here at Mike Varney Physiotherapy and being assured that the time off will actually do me good, instead of injuring myself further and not being able to do any other events later in the year. I can always find time to do other things when I'm injured, that I don't usually get time to do. Such as revising for an upcoming exam... Time keeping was never a speciality of mine!

Ice is the best option for injuries as it reduces any inflammation and swelling in and around the area. It can also ease the pain slightly. Ice is always applied for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes off and repeated for an hour.

March is usually the time we have a lot of people coming into the Clinic with running injuries from over-training, as people are stepping up the mileage or doing too much running and panicking that they only have a few weeks left until race day. Don't panic! There is nothing worse than over-training and getting injured, then not being able to run the race! Just step up the training slowly and you will get to where you need to be with no injuries and at least then you have a chance of completing the race than not at all.

Hope all your training is going well! Please feel free to leave a comment on how your training is going, as I would love to hear from you all and if there are any questions you would like me to answer.

Happy Running! :)