UKC

Keeping the necessary preamble to minimum... I lost a good friend (and UKC regular) last year to cancer and so I thought that I'd commit myself to raising some funds for Macmillan, to remember his passing a year on.
Macmillan have kindly given me a place on the Berlin marathon in September.
I can run a bit (was doing off road 10km's last year in under 50 minutes) and have a good level of fitness and the ability to grind things out when necessary, but I've not run in around 6 months and 10km at the moment hurts; I can take the breathing and heart rate issues and today's 10km (road) was 55minutes, but I really think that I need to get stretching post-run in order to stop my lower legs being such agony... any advice? Obviously, I need to run a LOT further in the near future!

In reply to Dom Whillans: I am a big fan of self massage using a faom roller or towel wrapped around a rolling pin rather than stretching in the traditional way.

I had a post race rubdown after a long race last week. The very kind man inflicting all kinds of discomfort whispered conspirationally 'you need to stretch'. I agreed with him, and have gone so far as to look at the Bob Anderson book on the shelf. Every manner of stretch in there.

In reply to Dom Whillans:
Depending on what tickles your fancy, there is a good book called yoga for athletes (written by triathlete who is also a yoga teacher), which has post run stretches to do. Ooooooh pigeon pose is tough on the arse. I like the book a lot, but its probably best if you have a basic idea of yoga poses to start with.

And +1 to the foam roller suggestion. Spiky massage balls are also good for getting at knotty calves. If its not agonising you are doing it wrong

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
cheers all... i'm currently using the rolling pin! beating my ITB like it's a steak that needs tenderising and trying to ease off my calf knots.