In May's edition, we featured Nikki's mission to complete 100 marathons in 100 days. Anyone following Nikki's adventure will know that things didn't go according to plan. Nikki has very kindly given us a Badger exclusive update on what went on.
May 1st started off well at Colwick Park, Nottingham. I was only 15 minutes late for my advertised start time and I had a couple of people join me till the halfway point. They realised they had better things to do with their day than complete 5km circles around a lake – no matter how pretty it was.
Days 2 – 12 consisted of running through rain, sunshine, rain, sunshine, more rain and even some sleet and snow – bloody stupid English weather – but for the most part everything felt okay.
Day 12 felt like I was flying, the incentive of finishing at my local pub seemed to light a fire under my ass. My crew, Sharif, was also very appreciative of the day’s finish line. He met me at the pub for a post-marathon celebratory pale ale and ferried me home to proceed with the daily task of feeding, watering and cleaning me down. Throughout the evening I noticed a pain in my butt, I was sitting at my laptop trying to finish a Uni assignment that was due the next day. Yeah, I’ve gone back to school - I’m doing a psychology degree to try and understand why my brain thinks that running 100 marathons is a fun thing to do.
"The ache became a hurt as I shuffled around the 5km loop in Leamington Spa. I tried to stretch my butt, glutes and hammy ... I couldn’t quite work out where the pain was coming from"
The pain got achier, but I put that down to sitting awkwardly on my bed trying to get my brain to think. Day 13 was in Leamington Spa, a short hour and a half drive from home. I was achey in the van, I was achey on the warm up, but folk had arrived to run with me so the only thing to do was crack on. I cracked on in more ways than one. The ache became a hurt as I shuffled around the 5km loop in Leamington Spa. I tried to stretch my butt, glutes and hammy, I tried to poke the area, I got people to pull my legs thinking that something was jammed or my hips were out of alignment, I couldn’t quite work out where the pain was coming from.
Oh man, it took me forever to get to the 42.2km mark, I had to stop at one point and put a final 30 minutes knocking my Uni assignment into it shape to submit it before 5pm. It took my 7 hours of moving time, 9 hours in total time to complete marathon 13 in the bloody stupid pouring rain! Sharif drove me home and by the time we got back to Nottingham I couldn’t walk on my right leg. My sports therapist came over and tried to find the issue, she couldn’t work it out either.
Next morning I crawled into my Osteopath’s clinic (it didn’t hurt when I was on all fours). He pushed, prodded, and needled my ass and finally said get to the hospital, concerned that I may have done something to my spine. Turns out I had a stress-fracture in my pelvis which apparently is a pretty rare injury. I know I don’t like to do things by half, but getting a rare injury is pushing that into the ridiculous category.
Anyways, I’ve been on the injury bench since May 14th trying to establish what went wrong, how I can fix it, and how I can prevent this from happening again. It’s not been easy, quick or simple but hey as they say ‘it may not be easy, but it will be worth it’ – bloody stupid motivational quotes!
FYB
