I was running in a local version of Beat the Blerch today and I had a bit of a realisation. I think the chance of running Six Inch this year is getting slimmer, and I’m OK with that.

It probably has something to do with signing up to the race even though I was broken. I’ve since realised that the jagged pain in my right foot as I walked through the train station that Friday was probably my peroneus brevis tearing, and that was also the night that I entered Six Inch. If you sign up for something when you are already broken, subsequently not being able to do it isn’t a surprise.

As it was I was broken twice over – I had issues with my back dating from June, and then the foot thing came in on top of it second week in July. It is now September and I still have a small niggle with my back – it isn’t large, but it is there, and makes itself known according to its own schedule.

I’m doing some abdominal exercises in an effort to build up that area – I have a suspicion that core strength or lack thereof is part of my problem. This is all gut feel and assumption, but as I am currently doing trade off runs with my physiotherapist (“Don’t run this week if you want to run on Sunday”), I figure it can’t hurt me and at least it is something I am able to do that feels vaguely effective.

I’m using the Runtastic Six Pack app on my iPad – Kat recommended it a while ago. I like it because it has animation videos of each movement. It registers as an effort, so I think it’s probably something I should have started doing earlier. Don’t laugh, but I also follow Jess Trengove on Instagram, and see often posts photos of her cross training. That’s one of the things that finally convinced me to do more; OK, she’s probably sponsored to run all day, but she specifically chooses to go to a gym and do some non-running workouts.

There is a new half marathon option this year for Six Inch, and runners could swap from the ultramarathon to the half marathon but that doesn’t appeal to me. If I do Six Inch, I want to do all of it and compete against my time from last year. So it’s either run it, or transfer my entry to someone else (or defer it until 2016) and volunteer instead.

November 14th is still my date of decision, and if my back isn’t fine, then I’ll defer until 2016. And hopefully I can enter Lark Hill instead, because to be honest; I wanted to do Lark Hill well before I decided that I wanted to do Six Inch.