Dear all – first of all, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who’s donated to my fundraising page in recent weeks. I recently hit the 90% mark which is super wonderful. Still really keen to push the target up to £2000, so keep those donations coming for Meningitis Now: https://tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/caroline-crehan-81410 .
I also wanted to apologise for the lack of blog posts over the last few weeks – in between all the training and A&E shifts, I’ve been absolutely up against it with a thesis deadline. Some of you will already know from my general chat at club runs, that I’ve be studying an MD at UCL over the last 3 years. An MD (Medical Doctorate) is like a medical PHD, a PhD for doctors with a more clinical focus on a particular patient problem. Whether its an MD or a PHD, both require a colossal amounts of energy, motivation, dedication, passion, will power and general grit to just keep going and finish the damn thing!! Not dissimilar to a Marathon to be honest!
My MD is looking at the challenge of implementing digital health interventions in low resource settings, based on my own experiences developing and implementing an app for newborn nurses in Africa. The app is called ‘NeoTree’ and it helps nurses decide what to do with a sick newborns when there are no doctors available and it’s currently running live in Malawi and Zimbabwe. The title of my MD is ‘Optimising and Evaluating Usability, Acceptability and Feasibility of a Neonatal Digital Health System in a Low-Resource Setting: The NeoTree case study’. I’m pretty passionate about the project having been very involved with initial design and development of the app and I also set up our NeoTree charity to help fund things - I would have loved to run London for my own charity NeoTree, but we are not quite established enough to have London marathon places yet. We will soon though - I am going to make that happen!
Anyway, to cut a very long story short - I’m on the second revision of my MD post viva. I’ve been asked to re-hash the whole thesis according to my viva feedback and my deadline for submitting a final clean copy to my supervisors is 27th September 2022 (the day before My 40th birthday!!). So with the London Marathon being on 2nd October there’s quite a lot going on this month for me and this is partly why my blogs have not been very regular! Apologies.
Balancing marathon training with thesis writing
So there are 2 issues with this delightful combination of activities!!
1) Sitting for long periods at a desk and staring at a screen makes legs super stiff. My hamstrings tighten up, my feet swell up - running straight out the door after a 6-hour editing session means there’s not much time for a warmup, resulting in heaviness and cramping. This has happened at club run a few times, where I’ve had to stop to stretch it out.
2) Sitting ++ also means I’m constantly putting pressure on my sciatic nerves – Sciatica is The Worst – It’s a dull gnawing pain that shoots down both my legs, keeping me up at night, sometimes giving me pins and needles/pain in my foot which stops me running completely.
But having coped with these issues for a few years now, I’m getting good at managing them. Regular stretching, yoga classes and remembering to warm up properly all help to keep these at bay. Using a stand up desk has also been a game changer! Psychologically my MD is very much like a mental marathon in itself. It’s like I’m at mile 25 now, and I just have to keep going. I absolutely must keep going because I’ve invested so much already. I just can’t let all that effort go to waste. I need to finally deliver this thing once and for all and get it over the finish line!! Although it’s a lot having two focuses (thesis and marathon), they sort of help each other along, with the final output more than the sum of both, if that makes any sense? I can focus the writing around the running, rewarding myself with a run after writing a particular section, or use a run to clear my head when I’ve lost my flow etc.
Well that’s enough chat about work stuff – what about the actual running training I’ve been doing?!
Well I’ve been loosely basing my training around a Jack Daniels spread sheet that Vicky kindly shared with me - it basically involves doing 2 beast quality runs a week, with all the other mileage squeezed in and around these. I’m not sticking to it completely, but it’s a good guide each week, and stops me from just aimlessly running without doing any proper quality stuff. I usually do Q1 in the week and Q2 on the weekend - Due to limited time, here’s a quick summary of highlights!
Lammas Park sandwiches – sandwiching these awesome eagles interval sessions in between a warm-up and warm down run (there and back) makes a perfect Q1 run on a Tuesday – have absolutely loved these session thanks to the wonderful Eagles guys who take the sessions – you rock!!
Parkrun Sandwiches - Another great quality session I’ve made up is sandwiching a parkrun inside a longer run – for example Poole Park run inside a 10k – this was a lovely flat route if anyone’s looking for a PB or just a P for their parkrun alphabet. Check out my post parkrun haggard face and my awesome strava heart rate chart! Don’t you just love a good graph.
Hiking in Dorset (Cross training obvs) - Whilst on holiday in Dorset, I did an epic Hike around the Jurassic coast with my boyfriend Phil – Huge steep hills were great training the glutes – at one point we had to climb up with a rope! loved every minute of it & needless to say we hydrated with pints along the way :)
Bought new trainers!! – well this simply has to be one of the highlights of any runner’s training programme!! – I simply love my new NB’s in neon yellow! They are mega bouncy and such a cheer up on a down day, they add that je ne c’est quoi /zing to any running outfit !!! I was worried they might make me look a bit like a duck (and I might start waddling) but it didn’t happen –my inner cheetah took over – sorry ducks!
17 miler from Tower hill – Lovely long run organised by Rachel Job - this was a proper bonafide long slow 3.5 hours – laying down those capillary beds as my old triathlon coach used to say. If you train too fast your small capillary beds in your connective tissues won’t develop and your muscles won’t grow bigger. Not sure about the science behind this, but anyway the weirdness of getting on the tube at Acton Town, getting off at Tower hill and then running all the way home totally blew my mind!! Look how dry & hot it is in the pictures - what a summer we’ve had.
Eagles 10k - Despite the heat I managed to do this as a Jack Daniels Q2 run. I did this by adding it on to Southall Parkrun with Kat (it was her great idea! thanks Kat). Then to our surprise Kat and I came first and second lady in the Parkrun !! Toot toot!!
Overall training has been getting quite tough. I’ve been very exhausted with training in the heat, but this weekend I put everything to the test in the Big Half to see if it’s all making any difference. Check out my next blog for my Big Half race report, to find out if its all paid off …Thanks for reading and see you all at the next Eagles session! :) Only 1 month to go now til the big day.