I’ve never been properly injured before, and certainly not in the middle of an intensive schedule. Getting injured is a funny old thing though and the multiple voices in my head are all shouting at me:
Voice 1 says “Don’t be daft, it’s not that painful. You ran 12 miles at New Year with it hurting this much and survived. You’re just wussing out.”
Voice 2 says “It’s an excuse. You know you don’t want to run 14 miles and you’re just looking for excuses. You’re pathetic, there’s no way you’ll ever complete 26 miles if you wimp out now.”
Voice 3 says “Of course you’re injured, you’re nearly 40 woman, you can’t expect your body to just step up to this training. That’s it now. Over the hill and broken, you may as well just embrace getting fat.”
Voice 4 says “If you take this week off and then the physio says take off another 3 or 4 weeks you won’t have enough time to do enough long runs, best get another one in now while you can.”
Voice 5 says “You’ve tried running through it and it’s really not getting any better. The sensible thing is to rest, see the physio and then take it from there.”
I know deep down that voice 5 is right and sensible, but the other 4 are shouting louder!
The time has come, though, to accept that my hip is not just going to magically get better and to keep running through the pain is probably a mistake. Not being able to walk upstairs without gritting my teeth is a sign, as is the fact that I’ve managed, with ice, painkillers and rest, to get the hip more or less pain free this week, but as soon as I run the pain comes back. The pain isn’t intolerable, especially if I pick up the pace a bit (which is strange in itself), but the pain afterwards is pretty nasty.
So there we are, training on hold for a week or so. I’m gutted, but hope I’ve still got enough time left to get back on track and still make the start line in 100 days time.
Dgtherunner's Blog 
I shall be voice number 6. Number 5 is telling the truth. Don’t listen to numbers 1 to 4 – especially the one that is telling you you’re too old. Shades didn’t START till she was 39 and she’s done 300! xx
Too many times, when umpiring hockey at a high level, and subsequently when “attempting” to be a marathon runner, I carried on when wiser counsel would have told me to stop due to injury. Whilst my chronic ankle injury which eventually required an operation was not caused by training through injury alone, I imagine the repeated injuries to the ankle did not help. Number 5 is telling the truth. You are not too old. xx