2023 brought its challenges. An injury sounds pretty insignificant when your family suffers a loss as ours did recently. But I'm trying my best to refocus for 2024, whilst supporting my family as best as I can.
Training had to take a backseat whilst we navigate a new chapter, but it's given my body some much needed rest to try and get on top of this knee injury once and for all.
There's never been any real diagnosis regarding my knee. A few things have popped up on scans from time to time, but nothing significant. In a way it's a good thing - no damaged ligaments or cartilage. But sometimes I feel it would have been easier mentally to know it's definitely this, or 100% that. The uncertainty is also part of the reason why I continued training for most of the summer in the hope I could race.
Rehab has gone well. Although a few months have gone by now with no running on my schedule I'm fortunate to have been kept busy with plenty of aqua jogging and cross training. I haven't had a chance to miss running too much as we are still working so hard in sessions. But recently my mind has wandered towards the Paris Olympic Games in July 2024.
It's still my goal to compete at my fourth Olympics. We don't know if the focus will be the marathon or the 10,000m, but I'm determined to be on the starting line.
I have been gradually building back into running. I started some easy runs on the Alter G (anti-gravity treadmill) and I will continue to increase both my time and speed on this equipment to build up to full training for this year's big goals.
A new chapter begins. And I feel it's going to be worth the wait!
Published 11 January 2024
