Future Plans and Aspirations As I Sit Reading Eat & Run in Rhodes, Greece

So I'm currently on my 3rd day (minus the day of travel) relaxing in Rhodes. Upon completing my first ever marathon I've had this terrible feeling on the top of my right foot. Like it kills. I put it down to having my shoe laces too tight. I have experienced this pain before, but it fizzled out after resting for 3/4 days. I went to work the day after the marathon feeling extremely dazed and still it ore of my runners high, the post race muscle pain wasn't too bad. But i was pre warned its actually the second and third day after a rigerous event which is the most painful. The 5 and a half hour shift was over in the blink of an eye. Being a cleaner, I still had to do my individual jobs around the Foodcourt when it wasn't busy. I had to get on my knees for one of them and it was then that i truly noticed the crippling affliction on top of my foot. I limped round the Foodcourt. Just putting it down to run/shuffling 26.2 miles with tight shoelaces. Friday came and the pain hadn't got better. It got worse. I checked it every day for swelling, bruising etc... Then Friday came and I cycled down to mother dearests and showed her. She was in a complete state of concern. The swelling was prominent. Like when you look at your big toe and bend it upwards you can see the tendon thingy and as you jiggle your toe up and down you can see this veiny tendon thingy protrude and retract up and down with the movement. Naturally. Yeah, well no. Not for my right. It was that swollen you couldn't see any tendon movement. I took some anti - inflammatory pills and hoped it would ease up. With any injury like this I feel it better to keep it warm and not sitting so much for it to seize up! 

Flying out on Saturday seen it ballooning, but I'm thankful I have a week to rest it on a sun lounger drinking and eating as much as I want. 3 days in and it's still killing. Any brush of other human flesh or any object on the top and I grimace in pain. The swelling is still there and it's now making a creaky sound when i attempt to fold my big toe downwards. Of which I don't try to do often as it is painful and the creaky pain makes me want to actually heave. This leads me to believe it could be extensor tendonitis or a slight stress fracture. With Brum half coming up, I am worrying as to whether I'll have to pull out because of it. 

Apart from my dodgy foot. I'm taking time for myself before going back into my final year as a undergraduate history student. But guess what? Instead of reading rich in academic knowledge texts and sources to help research my dissertation. I am indeed feeling sorry for myself whilst reading Eat and Run by Scott Jurek. It is amaze balls, I've read over a hundred pages in just over 24 hours with an aim to finish it by tomorrow. It's great. It gives you healthy recipes at the end of each chapter to fuel and recover from running. His accounts of the Western States 100 are incredible. I struggled and barely finished a full marathon. Never mind 100 miles. I thought people running 50k or over we're crazy. This man has taken my definition of crazy to a different level. It has so far inspired me to keep on challenging myself and research ultra marathons myself in the UK. 

My plans for next year go as follows:- 

On the 30th September (still being in Rhodes) I will receive priority entry to the first ever Birmingham International Marathon. Hosted by the Great Run Series. I SHOULD GET A PLACE. I've never been so iminent on wanting to cause myself pain for the say so of saying I ran the first ever one. Knowing that it will, in the future be possibly as big as London! Which then leads onto...

Hopefully gaining a ballot entry into Virgin Money's London Marathon 2017. I know chances are slim. So I have a back up being the Manchester Marathon. Failing that i might push for a May Marathon in Edinburgh if I can afford to get there. 

Obviously do as many half marathons As I can within the year. Not going too crazy though. Aim for a half a month. including running Coventry and BBCH again. 

Finally gain a team and stop wussying out over the expense of Tough Mudder. Failing that I definitely want to do the Autumn wolf run, but this time the Warwickshire one instead of Leicester.

Depending on where my degree takes me, hell it may even see me retaking the year. (Apply 1 for teacher training on UCAS opens 18th October 2016 for people like me who complete their degree next summer and want to go straight into working towards their QTS'). But if I get turned down for lack of classroom experience I am thinking of taking a year out as a teaching assistant part time ish as well as setting an aim for completing Chiltern 50km ultra marathon in Buckinghamshire in a hopeful 2018! As the saying goes,

"There will be a day i can no longer run. Today is not that day"