Roger Bannister 60th anniversary mile

Bannister anniversary

Tuesday May 6th was the 60th anniversary of Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile barrier. To mark the occasion, Dan Wymer (@running_dan_w) asked 60 people to run a mile and blog or tweet about the run. Read his blog post about the day.



I signed up to run a mile knowing it would be the day after MK Marathon, so I wasn't expecting to run a fast time. My physio Kieran had advised me to go for a walk on the Tuesday to flush out lactic acid, so a mile jog seemed a good alternative. I went straight after I'd dropped my children at school, and managed a fairly respectable 10:33 minutes for the mile.

Post-marathon recovery

It was a good idea to jog on Tuesday, because my legs felt much less stiff when I got home. I had another cold bath for 10 minutes, then donned a fetching pair of compression tights to wear for the rest of the day. I went for another couple of short walks in the afternoon too (1.5 miles in total), followed by my regular Pilates class in the evening. Drank plenty of water throughout the day, to rehydrate properly from Monday (not a chore though, I was really thirsty), and logged my food on myfitnesspal to make sure I didn't go mad and eat a bucket of pasta.

On Wednesday my legs felt fully recovered, apart from my sore knee, which will take a while to heal. I took my physio's advice to rest fully on Wednesday. I drank lots of water and ate sensibly, logging everything on myfitnesspal so I didn't gorge on chocolate!

I'm feeling ready to brave running club this evening, will be good to have an easy jog with the beginners to test my knee. The intermediates are planning their own Roger Bannister anniversary mile, a series of 100m sprint intervals as a relay, to see if we can beat 4 minutes! I might hold the stopwatch...

Hello knee pain, hello leg massages

The past few weeks I've noticed my right knee is starting to hurt in the same way it did last time I trained for a marathon, but only when I run at a slow pace (usually on a run-walk with beginners run club). On long runs I'm aware my knee is uncomfortable and aching, but it seems manageable and just typical of running a long way (like the aching hips and calves I'm also getting). Initial mild panic I was about to fail at this marathon training lark has now dissipated slightly, and I have identified four "action points".

1) Restart the daily leg physio exercises (side-lying leg raises, clams, prone leg raises, bum clenches, squats, single knee folds)

2) Add some calf, hamstring, hip, and (more) core strength exercises to my daily home workout

3) Ice/heat my knee daily and use my foam roller regularly (but not straight after running)

4) Stop running slowly!

The No Slow Running will obviously affect me helping at beginners run club, I might have to only take the group that runs without a walk break, but remaining uninjured is most important. Maybe I'll have to start cycling alongside the runners.

Tonight I booked to see my friend who is a qualified sports massage therapist; she gave my legs a good massage, slightly painful on the IT bands and thighs, but she reassured me that I'm not too broken, just some tightness in my calves and thighs that I can work on with the foam roller and by sports massage (every 4 weeks). We also talked about my training plan, hydration during the day and on long runs, eating while running, and Vaseline. (It's good stuff.)