Hi Kiwi Boy, thanks for the compliment! My serious running was done in the eighties, with London 89 as my PB - the week after I got married. After that I drifted into longer events in the hills, because they did less damage than pounding the pavements and were a different sort of challenge. Speed gave way to endurance, up to just under 24 hours in the case of the Bob Graham round of the Lake District.
Then came a prolonged period of sporadic training interspersed with studying for a degree and raising a family and I did not really make any effort to train seriously or compete until 2008 when I finally finished working shifts and could run at lunchtimes with a handful of workmates, of a wide range of abilities! First attempt at 5 miles with the group found me blown up at 3 miles and walking back the short way, six months later I could hold my own again but had not raced so I entered the local 10 miler and got round in 78 minutes, well pleased, and somewhat surprised. Obviously the next thing was a half marathon, even more surprising at 1:41, and just before the end of the year another at very short notice in 1:38:20 - aged nearly 59.
I suddenly had great hopes of making Gold standards as a 60 year old but unfortunately the arthritis was getting worse and I was getting stiffer and more creaky and training got reduced as a result, with a final half just under 1:39 seven months short of my 60th. That winter wife and I discovered parkrun, a UK invention which is spreading globally, a 5km free timed run around a local park in many towns and cities. My very first 5k attempt was 22:53 having never run such a short distance, and I managed to get that down to 22:03 after six weeks. Since then my times have gone downhill because I did not train any more, just raced on Saturdays, and even that stopped a month before my op because it hurt too much. My last 5k time was 27:22, the same as my wife's PB!
Since the op I have shuffled around the course with a trekking pole, before the run officially started, and recently started jogging properly again, with a best time of 27:26 and pain-free in the new hip. The other still hurts, though, and I have definitely lost condition despite walking most days and static biking up to 20 miles equivalent in one session, a total of 225 miles on foot and 110 on the bike.
Going forward, I would love to be able to run freely again and train properly but the natural hip will complain and I am more concerned to get a good season of rock climbing than do more running. I have the problem of deciding when to schedule the second BHR - late this year or sometime next - and time is generally running out (I'm 64 now).
Seeing my wife training most days now, after a lifetime of not running, is making me very jealous. I told my surgeon that running was a lower priority than mountain walking and climbing - but I miss being able to jog or run when I feel like it so at the moment I am in a bit of a quandary. I got relatively fit in 2013 by just adding one session a week of 400metre intervals, which is a horrible thing to do but works really well for me. When the new hip is six months old I would like to see how well I could manage this again.
Good luck in your recovery, you have time on your side and a fascinating discipline which I have never tried, being a rubbish swimmer, and training for the bike and swim can be done well before running starts in earnest - you will do well I'm sure!
Topic: Rock climbing and bouldering post HR and revision (Read 6359 times)
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