Oh, the roller coaster that is called running

This morning, I decided that if there is a God, he must have a deep sense of irony.

There was I, happy as a sand boy after a brilliant training session on Thursday, and less than 2 days later, wham!  Back down to earth.

I was about 5 minutes late for our ASICS Running Club meet this morning, then parked badly, so re-parked, and ended up arriving as all my mates were onto their last stretch of the warm-up session.

So I skipped stretching.

Take note.

Do NOT do this.

We then went for our warm up jog, and I needed the loo, and fell behind the pack.

So I cut across the park, so as not to be late, thereby only running about 1/2 of our usual warm up distance.

Take note Mark II.

Do NOT do this.

We started our running drills and as we were doing the stride drill – ouch!

Pain in right thigh.

And that was me out of action for the rest of the session, feeling mighty cross with myself because it was All My Own Fault.

Trying not to panic about another day wasted, and so close to ADHM (the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon), I stretched and stretched and then some, while the rest of my tribe raced up and down doing an impressive series of 20 hill repeats.

You can see them all in action (below).

I’m the orange blob at the back, leaning against a tree 🙁

I managed a slow cool down jog, but this morning’s contretemps has convinced me more than ever that pre-run stretching is essential.

I’d even written a blog post a little over 2 years ago, on this very subject, so I have NO excuse for this morning, other than my own stupidity, & a foolish desire to keep up with the group, rather than taking 5 minutes to warm up.

Lesson well and truly learned.

Pre & post run stretching is not to be skipped.

I know I’m preaching to the converted here, but just to show how seriously I’m taking this, here’s a link to a good article, which demonstrates some of the important stretches.  There are helpful demos of how to do the stretches.