Week 13 – Buried and Reborn

Week thirteen very nearly put me in the grave.

Two miles. That’s the grand total. Not a typo. Not a clever deload. Just illness doing what illness does best, humbling you at precisely the moment you feel ready to rebuild. One minute I’m mapping out a grand rehabilitation arc post-Nationals, the next I’m horizontal, negotiating with my immune system like it’s a hostile governing body.

There’s something uniquely offensive about being ill when you’re already trying to regain momentum. You can tolerate fatigue from training. You can rationalise a sore calf. But being wiped out by something invisible? That feels personal.

Still, two miles is better than zero, and zero would have been fine too. The ego doesn’t like that sentence, but it’s true.

With enforced stillness comes thinking time. And thinking time, in my case, tends to turn into plans. Possibly over-ambitious ones. The new structure for the next three weeks is simple on paper and slightly unhinged in practice: train twice a day, every day. Cycling in the morning on the turbo trainer, running in the evening. Controlled aerobic volume without smashing the calves. Build the engine while respecting the chassis.

The logic is straightforward. If the soleus doesn’t yet love high running load, I’ll expand the aerobic base through cycling. Low impact, high return. Then layer the run back in progressively each evening. It’s less dramatic than trying to claw back lost fitness in one heroic week, and far more sustainable.

There’s also something psychologically refreshing about routine. Morning spin. Evening run. Repeat. Illness disrupts identity slightly, you go from “athlete in progress” to “guy coughing in a duvet.” A schedule restores order.

Racing looms again soon. Possibly the Essex Road Relays, possibly the Southern 12 Stage. Either way, the next block tilts heavily toward 5km efforts. The calendar reads like a sharpening stone: two more road 5kms, the National 12 Stage, and the Flycarb Fast 5km. Shorter, faster, less forgiving. No hiding in a 12km cross country grind, just rhythm, threshold, and whether you can tolerate discomfort for fifteen minutes (new pb? NEW PB??) without losing your head.

In some ways, that excites me more than National XC did. Five kilometres is honest. It exposes aerobic depth and mechanical sharpness simultaneously. It rewards control but punishes hesitation. And after the chaos of a senior men’s XC start line, there’s something appealing about a race that feels comparatively contained, even if the pain is more concentrated.

So week thirteen reads like this: two miles, one dramatic viral episode, and a reset button pressed firmly. Not glamorous. Not Instagram-worthy. But quietly important. Because sometimes progress isn’t about what you ran, it’s about how quickly you’re willing to rebuild when things knock you flat.

For the next three weeks, it’s morning pedals and evening miles. Engine first. Ego second. Let’s see where the numbers land.

Breathe better. Run better.

See you next week 🙂