Down in the Dumps

Tramore Valley 5k
"And We're Off"

Amidst a flurry of Movember moustached men (and some women), the inaugural Tramore Valley 5k in aid of Marymount Hospice was hosted in the former Cork landfill site or city dump, which will shortly be opened as Cork's new "super park". Despite a slight smell of methane from what I suspect are badly capped landfill cells (yes I am an nerdy environmentalist), nearly 300 people ran the 2-lap course on a fairly windy day.

The new park, once officially opened, should be a superb facility and will have a link by footbridge to Vernon Mount, so there are high hopes for it to be a decent running facility, especially if they put in some lights for night running. This is good news given that the long term future of UCC's Farm is in doubt (apparently).

This was the first 5k I had raced in over a year and it was always going to be a good test to see if the consistent training due to a lack of shin splints (more on that later, some bad news I'm afraid) was having the desired effect. The course itself was relatively flat, with a slight downhill at the start and a slight drag at the end, so all in all fairly even.

The road, however, was a different story. There was relatively new paving for the best part of 3k which still had a lot of loose chippings, not great for the Five Fingers, but manageable despite the odd stone jamming into my heel, and with only one tight turn near the start slowing down the pack, it was a relatively fast course. I ran 20.06, which is my fastest for a while, so things seem to be moving in the right direction for the most part.

Coming In To Finish (Red Long Sleeve T-Shirt)

For the other part, my legs, in an act of submission to my training demands, decided it was time to familiarise me with an old injury, the shin splints have returned to my left leg. I don't really think it has been anything to do with my barefoot approach to running, rather it has coincided with my return to the hockey pitch and my clod-hopping astroturf shoes.

So off I went to the physio and after an hour of varying degrees of pain, there was an improvement. Between the shins, having my it band and iliopsoas released (whatever that means) and dry needles stuck into my legs, I felt much better (thanks to Sinead Murphy). There is still some tenderness after I run in my left shin but Christmas will bring a break from playing hockey, so we'll see if my astroturf shoes are the cause of the pain or not.

Dry Needles - Great Craic

Apart from that, it's been a good month for training, running over 25 miles a week, including one long run per week and a speed endurance session.  I'm hoping December will get that number closer to thirty and the new year will bring even more miles (at least that's the plan for the resolutions!).

No movement on the old MDS waiting list, still stuck at 48 but not too worried about that for the moment.