Earlier this week I decided to visit a physiotherapist. The deep muscle massage seemed to help relieve some of the pain in my muscle, but it did make it sore the next day. That was probably because I have deliberately rested it much as possible for the last eight weeks (on doctors’ orders). Now it seems to be healing and this has given me extra confidence that this is the beginnings of a permanent recovery.

As I said at the beginning, there is no way I can complete my original training plan and I probably won’t have time to build up to the half-marathon distance either, but I hope to get up to around ten miles before the race. The rest I’m sure will come on the day. Whatever state I’m in, I’ll still run it and enjoy it. The PB will have to wait until next year.

Being injured and attempting to train whilst recovering is so frustrating! Hopefully everything will have settled down again by the time of my next training run, so I can continue. This stop-start business with this injury and recovery is starting to knock my confidence that I will ever get back to where I was six months ago.

Since then I’ve run three marathons, done the Leeds 10K and even completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks in under 12 hours. I think that’s quite an amazing achievement. However, this anniversary has gone by almost unmarked because that Three Peaks attempt left me with an injury which has stopped me from running for the last four weeks, which I’ve been really unhappy about.

It’s getting better now though, but I won’t be able to run Leeds this year (though I will be able to walk it – hopefully) and my plans to set a PB in this years’ Great North Run are also under threat.

I can’t wait to start running again and when I do, I’ll allow myself to reflect on my achievements. At the moment though, this part of my life is on hold.

Whilst training for Paris, I noticed a twinge around my knee. I ignored it until after the race, then treated it by doing some special targeted stretches for two weeks. However, after the first week of intensive training again, this old injury returned, but this time it was much worse. With a week to go before my Yorkshire Three Peaks attempt, I decided to rest for that week and use it as an informal taper week.

That Three Peaks attempt has since put paid to any hopes of running in the next few weeks. I must have pulled a muscle or something similar whilst scrambling down Ingleborough, which I didn’t really notice at the time, but now it hurts whenever I walk for longer than fifteen minutes. It would be impossible (and foolish) to do any running in this condition, so until I can get this problem resolved, there will be no running for now.

All of this has left me tremendously demotivated. I definitely won’t be able to break my 10K PB in the Leeds 10K (in three weeks) and the length of time my recovery needs may seriously jeopardise my plans for PBs in the Great North Run and the Dublin Marathon in October.

I think this is a good point to update you with what my running-related plans are for this year. Training is well under way for the Paris Marathon, which I’ve been accepted into.

After that, there’s the Leeds 10k in June, which I’ve also applied for. I don’t know if I’ve got in yet, but since I ran last year I’m not worried about not getting a place.

Then there’s a gap over the rest of summer until September, when I hope to be running in the Great North Run. This is the world’s largest half-marathon, so places are assigned via a ballot system.

Finally, my last major run of 2009 will the Dublin Marathon (again). I really enjoyed running it last year, so I applied for this years’ run almost as soon as entries opened.

Unfortunately, I managed to pick up a cold between getting on the plane over there at the end of my holiday and getting off over here. I was seriously annoyed, but I’ve got over the worst of it now. Nevertheless, I didn’t want it to get in the way of my Paris Marathon training, so on Saturday I went out for my first run of 2009.

The usual advice is not to run whilst ill, however, it can actually be beneficial to do a short run if you have a cold, because it helps the clear the airways (Disclaimer: Don’t go running if you have a cold with a fever or chesty cough). There was a lot of sniffling going on, which was annoying, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fact I didn’t need to put too much effort in, nor did I feel really tired by the end of it. Probably the opposite in fact.

I was worried I might have lost a lot of fitness over Christmas, but it looks like I needn’t have bothered, as those three weeks of training before my Christmas holiday appeared to have paid off.