Garmin Run Club Ambassador fights back from injury for London

Having gotten injured on day one of his 18 weeks of training schedule, Bournemouth Athletics Club skipper Jon Sharkey recently gave us an update on his road back to recovery for the 2010 Virgin London Marathon

 "Getting injured on day one was hardly a textbook start to eighteen weeks
of gritted teeth, aches, pains, early mornings, late nights and oh, sheer
bloody single mindedness not understood by anyone who hasn’t been through the same. It can be a lonely experience without the support of a good
team and that’s what drives us to reach new heights at BAC. It’s been quite a
journey.

On New Year’s Day, watching helplessly from the sidelines at a race I
felt I could have won, a 31:58 10k seemed months not weeks ago. It was the run
that turned a sub 2:30 marathon from an optimistic target to a realistic
one. Plodding round grass surfaces for a further two weeks turned the tides
somewhat and left a soul destroying feeling of being swept out to sea.

Fittingly, it was session pacing a club mate to a tempo run which
belatedly began the wave of emotion to marathon day, hoping, just hoping, it
wouldn’t come crashing down around me. The next day I was on the treadmill
testing some meaty pace like a juvenile child set loose in a toy shop. The
calves didn’t like it. But the knee held up so it was all systems go.

The first real test was February’s Blackmore Vale Half Marathon.
Undulating, isolated, but two measurable markers in an evenly matched runner
and a time from last year. I beat them both. Progress, but still work to be
done, that’s the runner’s mentality.

Next up was Bath Half and with training having been consistent and
improving the carrot of a sub 70 was too great a temptation to miss. In truth
it was a painful effort and I held on for a 70:43. You can get away with gung ho in a half. Do it in a full and you’ll soon be treading water way out of depth. The time suggests 2:30 is doable, although easier said than done and all that!

Now it’s an ankle injury leaving hopes on a knife edge and sighs of
relief every run completed without aggravating it; nobody said this would be
easy. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it. Is the dream still on?
Maybe. But whatever the clock ticks as the finish line beckons, it won’t
have been through lack of trying. That reminds me, must get out for a run…"

Bournemouth Athletics Club have signed up at as the very first Garmin Run Club. Making use of the awesome technology within Garmin Forerunner watches and Garmin Connect. Sign your club up at www.garminrunclub.co.uk to take advantage.