Runs Writes Code

The Long Road to London I had secured my Championship Entry at the Great North Run but was beginning to doubt I was going to do it justice. Since the GNR I had been diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis, secured my biggest race win and then picked up an injury which ruled me out for the whole of February. Fairly or not, I laid the blame for the injury on the medication I was taking for the arthritis. It had exacerbated the mastocytosis and - I believe - pushed me into a state of overtraining. The fault though was my own for ignoring all the red flags, like maxing my HR on the first rep at training that evening (and still being 10 seconds slow over 800m), an elevated resting HR and steadily climbing ALT, fatigue on an easy run… Hindsight sucks. February was a write off training-wise, and it had also launched a thousand ships of doubt about my ability to continue competing. I cross-trained for a week, made the injury worse, sulked for a week then started cross-training again. The s...

Don't take a backseat with your body, it's the only one you're getting. This post puts together some things that have helped me get my life back from mastocytosis (mast cell disease) and early inflammatory arthritis Research : Find out everything you can about your condition from reputable sources. If your condition has a charity, start at their webpage. They should have links to the latest research. The Internet can be a great source of information but you need to be able to judge what is backed up by scientific research and what is bunk. There is a lot of bunk. This is why it is a good idea to start out with the charity site. After that you'll be armed with enough knowledge to spot the bunk. Bunk at its most benign is misapplied science/understanding, perhaps by fellow sufferers. At its worst its twisting the facts to sell you something. Lifestyle : Consider what changes you can make to improve your 'background' health. Add more fruit and veg, preferabl...