Juneathon 4 (’17) – Emergency

I’m not sure if this particular area of the body has a name, but on the left hand side of my body… about 20 cm from the top of my shoulder – specifically, the bony bit where the humerus meets the scapula (yes – I know words. I know all the words)… on the lateral side anyway… where the deltoid muscle sort of makes a slight ‘V’ shape … well it does when I’m a bit slimmer… when I’m fit… and tensing it… and standing underneath a spotlight anyway… well that bit anyway… actually… hang on…. I’ll find a picture…

That is clearly not me.

I have skin on.

But that bit of the body, anyway.

Not the labelled bit.

The bit below that.

The ‘V’.

That specific bit.

That…

 

… is pretty much the only part of my body that DOESN’T hurt*

 

Today, I have developed facial swelling and toothache.  I have a dentist appt. on Wednesday anyway, so I will cope until then.

I did not go for a run today.

 

I barely did anything.

 

So… at only four days into June… I have had to use… the emergency plank!

Just 1min 30secs though. I do need to sit up from bed in the morning.

 

 

*clearly, I can still function, I am still going to work tomorrow, and I am well aware that at some point in the (probably quite near) future, I shall consider how I feel now and think, “you were lucky!”

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Juneathon 1 (’17) – Where to begin…

It’s June.

Which means it’s Juneathon. A month of activity/exercise and blogging. You know…that thing where you start of saying that you’re going to be all fitness and health for a month and then manage a week if you’re lucky, before then either slinking away hoping nobody notices, or proudly announcing your failings to the blogging world, amid encouragement from all the other slackers to eat all the biscuits/cake etc.

__________
I’ve not blogged for ages. A lot has happened. 
Unfortunately one of those things has been me getting older, which results in a number of things, 

1) I’m slowing down.

2) Bits of my body are failing me.

4) I can’t remember all the other things that have happened.

3) I get a bit muddled.

_________
I recently turned 40. I didn’t have a big do. 

I thought about inviting all my friends round but they don’t really know each other so I figured I’d visit them both individually at a later date.

Instead, I took a couple of days off work in April and as my wife and kids had different Easter holidays to each other, after seeing the kids off to school we headed up into the Peak District. 

We enjoyed some lovely views and a glass of celebratory bubbles at Froggat Edge…

…and stayed over in some “accommodation” nearby…

…which, despite the completely inappropriate use of punctuation, was actually really nice. I woke up the next morning while it was still dark and treated myself to a little run along the edge, snapping few nice pictures along the way…

It was a nice birthday trip away. 

Plus we saw some cool cows we weren’t expecting. (That’s a sentence that can surely only be expressed by someone aged 40+ , right?)

___________

Physically, little runs are all I seem to be able to manage at present and have been for quite some time now. 5k …maybe 10k at a push. I can do these without too much agro. But anything more and my left achilles gives me jip. It’s just letting me know it’s there, mostly just whispering, but if I start getting cocky and try to run further/faster, it shouts at me.

To combat the reduced running (and associated weight management problems I then experienced) I’d been going to the gym a bit more instead, and was enjoying this – a regular circuit of free weights, skipping and stretches (yes….stretches…I know…get me). This was going well, until a slight niggle in my right arm became more than that. 

Long story short – it’s tennis elbow. I didn’t realise it could be this painful. I genuinely thought I’d somehow broken something. 

And now, about 4 months after I first noticed something, I can wake in the early hours and be unable to straighten my arm.

 It will go… eventually… apparently… I’m told. But it may be months….it could be a couple of years… But the gym circuit has now been cut from my routine too.

There have of course been subsequent weight management issues associated with this.

__________

Those of you who have read my previous postings may know that I’m quite ‘All Or Nothing’ when it comes to my health. If I’m being fit and active, I’m often also eating well. As I’ve not been very fit and active, my nutritional intake has also been less than perfect. 

Now as confused as I get with what my idea of ‘perfect’ is anyway… High fat/low fat, carbs good/bad, etc (and at this point I want to say, please don’t try to advise me, you will only seek to confuse me further!), what I do know is that eating the amount I have been as often as I have been, has not been great for me. 

The subsequent weight management issues associated with this no doubt aggravate my achilles issue, affect my motivation, etc, etc. So I need to do something.

____________

I still manage to enjoy the odd game of tennis. I gave this a rest for a while to see if it helped the elbow. 

It didn’t. 
And I’m not giving it up indefinitely so I’ve decided it’s a case of taking a few painkillers before a match, gritting my teeth and getting on with it!

My boy, who’s eleven (funny name for a boy, I know) and I are playing in a league match together as partners this Saturday. I’ll let you know how we do.

________

I’m not (always) daft. It’s not like I’m going to go mad and try and do 100 press ups, 100 sit ups, 100 lunges and run 10km every day or anything*…

*…I …errr… I… I  did that a couple of weeks ago…. For one day… And then couldn’t get out of bed the next morning… So that’s not a good idea people. I have done this so you don’t have to.

 Today, I have started gently. Some stretches. A few sit ups. Let’s not go mad. I’m determined too teach my daughter, who’s six (funny name for a girl, I know), to ride her bike this half-term holiday. I shall be doing that later today, too.

So there’s my update. My first Juneathon post in a long while.

 It will be all or nothing, I’m sure. Either the full month of activity and blogging or a miserable fail followed by blogging silence. 

And let’s face it, I’ve already got my excuses in.

10k taper ?

Tapering? For a 10k? Is that really necessary?

Well, no. No, it isn’t. But that hasn’t stopped me from inadvertently experimenting with it as a tactic. Because, as previous blog posts have shown, I’m a proper science type person an’ that.

Either that, or I just generally haven’t been running much recently and now that 10k I signed up for ages ago has come around.

It’s known as a ‘pudding run’. Intended to have connotations of Christmas and because you get a Christmas pudding instead of a medal at the end.

It is  NOT called that because it is run by puddings. Except for me, that is.

I feel like a right pudding, currently. Caught in a bit of a cycle of being a bit overweight, making running harder, not enjoying running as much, not running as much (/eating all the food), being a bit overweight, etc. I decided to hit the gym a bit for some variety.

Don’t worry, I shall not bore you with tales of my reps and weights and sessions and motivational quotes and the like (yawn). Suffice to say I do a variety of things and do a few circuits of said variety. I was feeling stronger and generally quite good… until I attempted something a little beyond me…

…That ‘something’ was getting out of the car on Thursday last week.

Yes…I don’t know why I thought I was capable of exiting a vehicle on my own without anyone to spot me.  Doing so without a warm-up was clearly just sheer recklessness. The result was an initially mild ‘mmm…That twinges a bit’ that gradually intensified into a ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to paint my toenails put my own socks on again!’. 

I don’t really know what I’ve done exactly but it’s somewhere between having my spine ripped out (like on the retro computer game Mortal Combat) and maybe pulling a bit of a muscle.

So here I am three days post-injury, and able to walk at least, but really not sure about tomorrow’s 10k. I still have hope… Especially since immediately following that, I have a tennis match to play.  That is ‘immediately after’ as in I have warned my tennis partner to expect to see mud-splattered legs when she’s serving.

If I’m honest, and I had to choose between the run and playing tennis, I’d choose tennis. But:

 1) I’m greedy and I want to do both.

2) I’m tight and I’ve paid for the run already.

3) If I do do the run and then find I cannot play tennis/walk/breathe properly, my son (aged 10) would likely do a good job of standing in for me in the tennis and I’d enjoy watching him.

I shall no doubt write a blog post next week about how it’s ALWAYS the right thing to rest an injury.

I’ll keep you posted.

Pride comes before awful

So my foot is definitely better. And I’ve been for a few short runs to make sure it’s better. And my cold is much better. And I’m eating better again. Well done me. And generally things are better. 

And on Saturday I ran a parkrun again for the first time in ages it seems.

Unfortunately that was NOT better. But I expected that. Ran my socks off and was still about 50 seconds off my best. Glad I went though. Well done me. Let’s get this consistency going again.

I’ve kept up my non-running exercises too (I decided to take up new hobbies of weight lifting and knitting [when I prematurely and over-dramatically  assumed that my foot niggle meant I would never walk again!] mainly just so I could get the ‘knit one, curl one‘ joke in) so, well done me.

Also, having eaten a healthy homemade dinner on Saturday night, I heroically decided that doing the ironing would prevent me from further snacking. Well done me. I got the board out and the iron, and was just about to plug it in… when the phone rang…

…oops…

…I’d totally forgotten about the tennis club meal out to the local Thai restaurant. ‘Where are you, mate?” came the voice from the phone.

Oops…

“On my way!” I replied.

I promptly cycled into town (my body is a temple, you know).

I then proceeded to drink all the beer and eat all the food.

 I eventually cycled home somehow (my body is a temple and all that) …far too late, of course, and slept terribly, woke early and ate a HUGE fried breakfast (which is required by British law).

My tennis match is just after lunch on Sunday, so I don’t actually eat lunch (just a packet of Maltesers). I play ok, but we lose the ‘important’ (it’s all relative though!) tennis. I then eat the muffins/choc biscuits/flapjack provided before coming home and having a full roast dinner. 

Yay! Go me! ahem.

It wasn’t an easy weekend in other aspects. On Friday night, Dad was taken in to Hospital. I won’t go into details but suffice to say he is out now and sounded better than he has in a few weeks actually.

Andy Murray lost the tennis earlier (this probably features unnecessarily  on my list of bad things that happened this weekend).

I also had the sad news that an old friend from my University days had died. I had totally lost touch with her over the past few years and didn’t even know she was ill. She was only a year or two older than me and her kids are similar ages to mine. Not that her having young children makes it any greater or less of a loss but just that I can identify with the fragility of it all.

And then Sir Terry Wogan has died as well…not that I knew him personally, of course but I did sort of ‘grow up’ with him.

😦
Not the best of weekends, really.

I’ll be hoping for a ‘recovery run’ tonight.

BREAKING NEWS: Runner realises that actually NOT running with an injury can be beneficial to healing.

A 38 year old, thinning (hair rather than body-type), brunette runner has recently given an exclusive interview to this blog describing essentially how, following the onset of mysterious foot pains that threatened to leave him unable to ever walk again, he was able to miraculously turn his fortunes around in just three weeks!

I caught up with him over a coffee in his kitchen recently to establish the facts of this extraordinary case.

He takes a sip of coffee, lets out a long sigh and sits back in his seat as he places a cigar in his mouth and nonchalantly places his feet on the chair next to him. His hamstrings are so tight that the resultant release of energy catapults him backwards into the floor. He eventually recovers, shifts uneasily in his chair, takes another sip of his drink and a bite of his cigar before beginning his tale as if the events of the last thirty seconds never actually occurred.

“It was amazing really” he begins, recalling the events of the past month. “I went from being fully active – running, swimming, performing stunts aboard the top of a train, and Morris-Dancing at weekends – to being unable to place my foot to the floor without shooting pain. And I had no idea why!”

“I even wrote a blog post about it,” he continues, “to try and cement in my own mind that it was in fact real.  Because everything I write in blog posts is real and actual fact!” He slams his fist on the table and takes a further bite from his cigar as he says this.

“Runners fall into one of three categories when it comes to injuries,” he asserts with an air of authority in his voice…

“Category (1) – I’ll be fine. It’s just a niggle. Nothing that a good hard track session or ‘undulating’ long run with full mandatory ultra running kit won’t cure!

Category (2) – I must immediately make an appointment with a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and demand an MRI / acupuncture / a personal 24 hour round the clock physio / an invasive operation 

Category (3) As if there’s a category 3! There is no other option. Category 3 is clearly a joke. There is nothing to see here.” 

He snorts, laughing a little too long at his own non-joke as he proceeds to eat around the edge of his cigar before dipping it in his coffee. After a moments silence, I urge him to continue….with the story…not dipping his cigar in his coffee.

“I have always been a category (1) personality but losing the ability to weight-bear when shoeless had me stumbling around for answers. I thought my tennis match would let me accurately assess the extent of the injury but I had the wrong week, then it snowed on the right week and the match was cancelled. I ran to my car after work briefly last week but apart from that and lifting a few weights, exercise has been pretty non-existent. To be honest, I was quite fed up and I had very little mojo to do anything even if I could have. Maybe this saved me.”

He pops the rest of his cigar in his mouth and gets another identical one from the TWIX packet next to him…

“So there you have it.” he says, as the interview reaches its climactic conclusion, “I basically didn’t do anything. Didn’t take painkillers. Didn’t take anti-inflammatories. Just rested. And it got better.”

WOW! I’m left speechless. As I attempt to adjust to the enormity of these events. How one man, by resting, has effectively turned upside down conventional wisdom with respect to running related injuries.

He pulls me over to one side and whispers in my ear…

“Do you know, in hindsight, I reckon it was doing the can-can in bare feet on the tiled kitchen floor with my daughter a few weeks back and following that up with a few sessions of that ‘Shape-Up’ game on the Xbox – again, without shoes. I reckon it was just some sort of…well… bruise. 

Maybe I’ve been a bit over-dramatic.”

I am in shock. I have wasted too long writing an article that I could have headlined ‘Man recovers from bruise!‘ and so I collect my belongings and leave, slowly shaking my head, and without saying another word.

As I get to my car, and for the entire drive, I panic that I cannot find my wallet that I was sure was in my trousers earlier…but when I get home later that evening it turns out, I find it down the side of the sofa. 

The following day I smile to myself and think.  That runner bloke and me… we’re pretty similar really.  

I crack open a TWIX, dunk it in my coffee and look forward to my rearranged tennis match on Sunday afternoon.

Turkey Trot – Keyworth

On Saturday (err…a little while ago now – not the one just gone – this has taken me far too long to write), I thought, “What I need on my blog is a write up of a race that I enter on a whim having not run for a couple of weeks and while I recover from an injury.”

You see the week before, THIS HAPPENED (<<<blog post link). 

In summary (and this really is the short version),  the Friday was my work’s Christmas do to which I had cycled, eaten perhaps (definitely) too much, drank a very balanced amount (balancing the food out), and danced way too much, finally getting home to bed at about 02:00 on Saturday morning – the same morning that I ran my 50th parkrun and my 9 year old old son ran his 10th. Not to mention (which is a weird thing to say because I’m now about to mention it…) meeting up with parkrun tourism royalty – Louise Ayling (aka abradypus). We headed straight from there to the tennis club where I promptly pulled a muscle in my calf and found even just walking very painful.

Naturally, the obvious next move from this point of limping around for a few days, was to get chatting to some folks running an ‘undulating’ (and we all know what that means!) winter half-marathon the next weekend and express interest in the possibility of getting a transfer place.

Yes. That’s a good idea. Don’t run for a week because you’re injured then enter a hilly undulating half-marathon that next weekend. Nice one.

I only found out I had a transfer place for the Sunday’s Turkey Trot on the previous afternoon (official entries are sold out within a few days in September time). I was at a football match when I got a message from a lovely chap called Alan (a contact of Katie’s over at runyoung50) saying that due to injury, he’d not be running it now, and if I could collect the number, it was mine for no charge (though a £5 charge is made by the organisers on race day to cover admin, and surplus is donated to Rainbows Children’s Hospice). He happened to live only a 5 minute run from the football ground so I figured if I could make it to his without pulling the calf muscle again, I’d be fine. I was fine. And I now had the number.

The Keyworth ‘Turkey Trot’ was the first ever race I properly ran (not including school sports days and carnival fun runs when I was growing up).  I mean, I’m still growing up obviously, but originally I ran this when I was training for the London Marathon in 2000. And now I was going to run the ‘Turkey Trot’ again. 

Pre-race on Sunday morning… It was chilly… But should it be shorts or tights? 
It was shorts… 

 
…but it was also hat and gloves all the way!

I have no idea what time I managed in 2000, but on training runs of this distance nowadays, anything close to two hours lands me in contentedville but I certainly didn’t want to take the place of an injured runner only to end up not-finishing as an injured runner myself.

I think this may have kept me from the usual ‘sprint finish’ that I attempt in the first two miles of any long run. Splits ended up fairly even actually (well, even for me), considering the hilly undulating nature of the course profile. 

   
…and the heart rate showed a good*, steady increase… (*is this good? Or would that suggest it is not sustainable for say a 20 miler or marathon? I don’t actually know)

  

I don’t really do race reports very well. So that’s it.

I got round. I enjoyed it. I was even happy with my time. Yay.

A little stiffness in the legs for a couple of days followed, and as I gave blood on Friday afternoon, I also gave parkrun a miss the following Saturday morning. I hit a few tennis balls with my son later on, though…
…and…

…when running for a drop-shot…
… pulled that calf muscle again!!

It’s the law…

It’s the law of running that a few weeks before a big race/event something will go wrong. 

This includes (but is not restricted to…):

Broken bones. 

Getting a cold.

Mojo deficiency syndrome.

Slightly poorly ankle.

…and it is the most serious of the above ailments with which I am currently suffering.

Yes. The slightly poorly ankle.

I played tennis yesterday and picked up another mystery injury. The random arm bruise from last week is still colourful, by the way…



(I shall be providing weekly bruise updates because I know that’s what you want.)

The new injury was a hurty-ankle but I couldn’t work out if it was an outside (oh-dear-I-must-have-hit-myself-in-the-ankle-with-my-racquet-without-realising-at-the-time) sort of pain, or an internal (oh-dear-I-have-inadvertently-placed-excessive-strain-on-the-already-overused-and-under-recovered-soft-tissues-of-an-unstable-joint) sort of pain.

So… to assist in diagnosis, I went for a 9 mile run this morning.  It was supposed to be 16 miles, but prudence suggested otherwise. 

(I normally don’t listen to prudence, she can be a bit bossy and boring, but it’s important to hear people out sometimes, I think).

And the revised diagnosis is…

A hurty and slightly swollen ankle.



I seemed to run on it ok, but I don’t want to push it. Next weekend is a big tennis match again, and the week after that is the Ashby20, a hilly 20-mile road race. So I think I might just take things down a notch running-wise before then. If that then goes well, I shall just keep myself ticking over until the marathon a month later.

Prudence and I are chilling out together this week. I’ve decided to get to know her better.  I’ve been a bit hard on her in the past.

RICE RICE baby

Vanilla Ice – reworded for injured runners.
Ice Ice Baby – new lyrics.

R est
I ce
C ompression
E levation
You know it makes sense.

Disclaimer – this blog post should not be considered as medical advice and appropriate professional blah blah blah sought if you blah blah, etc.

“RICE RICE Baby”

Yo, injury, don’t brick it. RICE RICE Baby, RICE RICE Baby
All right Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
It’s what to do for a running complication…
Some pain makes your muscles clench tightly,
Stabbing like a harpoon daily and nightly. Will it ever stop? Yo – I don’t know. Take off your shoe, you foot grows, to the extreme like it’s been hit by a vandal – not a nice stage look like a chump in a sandal. Rest! Go put your feet up, keep still, you know if you don’t that it’s only gonna kill.
Deadly, don’t be a dope, move steadily. Anything less than a rest is a felony
Don’t move it, just leave it, You’ll bet it gives way. You better not run ‘cos your foot won’t play.
If there is a problem, this’ll solve it. Check out a book while my advice resolves it.
RICE RICE Baby… feel ill huh?
RICE RICE Baby… keep stiller
RICE RICE Baby… (*rhyme filler*)
RICE RICE Baby just chill, yeah

Now that the body is jumping, like your foot’s kicked in, and the veins are pumpin’ Quick to the fridge (to the fridge or freezer), get an ice bag or a pack of peas, yeah.
Wrap it up, for when you put it on your skin, You could learn that it burns though it’s cold, it’s a sin.
Chilling it, to reduce the temp oh, (it stops swelling if you take it so low)
Rollin’ with a piece of foam With my sock pulled down so my blood can flow.
Then twitter’s on standby, Waiting just to say, “why?!” you should stop!, Ice , lift it high.
Don’t keep on pursuing til it breaks – stop!, you’ll bust what’s left, and then you’ll have to just hop…

That black toe’s dead Yo – but you continued with “I’ve worn a… compress haven’t you?”

Feeling hot, being squished by compression socks,
Running lovers recovering from all their knocks

Jealous ’cause they’re out all the time
Shame if you’re lame but to move is a crime.
Steady, then you’re back hitting walls
The chumps acting fast will be heading for a fall.
parkrun – “see you at the bell” just grab your barcode – You don’t need no gels.
Running- on the concrete real fast, Pumped that your fine, slam on the gas. Marshall to marshall, the route was stacked. You try to get away but you finish with the pack.
With RICE on the scene, you know what I mean. It fixed you up, now you’ll enter for some racing.
Yes, there was a problem but you solved it. Check out the foot while metatarsals revolve it.
RICE RICE baby
RICE RICE baby
RICE RICE baby

Lost

The other day a kind gentleman at the post office informed me that I’d left my cashcard on the counter as I was about to walk out. I was grateful of course, but I had never really realised it was gone. If however you’ve ever lost something important like a wallet or mobile phone, spent ages looking for it, getting stressed about it, and THEN found it, or had it returned to you… THAT feels bloomin’ amazing right? Well this is my, “I think I’ve lost my wallet” post.

My ‘wallet’ in this case though is the effective use of my right shoulder. It’s going to take longer than I thought to look for it, and I’m beginning to entertain the possibility that I may not find it or have it returned to me. I don’t mind admitting that I’m a bit miserable about this but I’m trying to focus positively.

I’m not a radiographer, but I’m reliably informed my Mr Consultant man that this x-ray, taken yesterday, still shows a fracture at the distal end of the clavicle. He didn’t seem overly concerned that I wasn’t pain free yet and still feels that my lumpy shoulder could settle. I have my doubts. My shoulder feels worse now than when I did it in, 11 weeks a ago, and I think my current weakness is in part due to altered bone position and therefore angle of muscle pull.
Consultant review in 4 weeks. If still in pain it will be a big shot of steroid to the shoulder, he says. I’m willing to hope.

I’m hoping that that this post will serve to remind me in future months (when I have full range of movement, no pain, and resumed all my favourite supporting activities to their pre-fracture standard) how I feel about the possibility of not regaining them.

I am thinking ahead to a time when I can play a competitive game of tennis against my son. When I can wrestle with him again. When I can reenact the famous lift from Dirty Dancing and such like, with my fast-growing dancing daughter. And, if at all possible, I would still like to take a shot at an ironman distance triathlon before I’m 40.

None of these things seem achievable right now. So if they do happen, I’d darn well better appreciate them!

In the meantime, I have to try and focus on what I can do. Running isn’t super-comfortable, but I can.
I can manage a gentle bike ride.
I can have a kick around in the park.
I can do a million and one other things I currently take far too much for granted.

People lose stuff all the time. I hate losing stuff. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s a pain. It’s a hassle.
If I find my ‘wallet’, I shall be most appreciative.
If I don’t, I need to shrug it off and remind myself of all the other things I’ve not lost.

.

.

.

But I really hope I do find it.
That would be very nice, thank you.

Epilogue (Robin hood 13 of 12)

This could be dangerous… I’m sitting with a full bottle of wine in front of me, determined to move on from my last post ’10 things I like about marathons’ (which was only partly tongue-in-cheek) and work out where I’m going.

I might even neglect to check it for spelling and grammar. Yeah… I’m living life on the edge!

I’m not an elite athlete.
I wouldn’t describe myself as an ‘athlete’ at all.

That may not come as a shock to you but I state it clearly because it’s relevant to the next bit.

I’m not even sure I would describe myself as a runner.
But I run. I have enjoyed running (and sometimes hated it).
I play tennis.
I ride a bike.
I swim.
I like a physical challenge.

I don’t do these things because I’m brilliant at them. I do them because I enjoy it. Sometimes, there and then at the time – THE PROCESS… and sometimes because of the results, accomplishing something that was tough, feeling fitter, feeling stronger, feeling healthier – THE PRODUCT.

I remember entering my first marathon, which happened to be London in 2000 and thinking it was well out of my scope of possibility but with regular training, being unable to afford food, and a large helping of blissful ignorance, I made it over the line in what has since remained my PB. This marathon, I enjoyed. I would have been happy to just ‘get round’ but I felt like I’d really done myself justice. I finished in 4:15:something.

5 years later – another marathon. It was a 5:32:something misery.
5 years after that, a respectable marathon time of 4:32:53 followed by a 4:38:something a few months later.

Now, I’m not an elite athlete. I think I’ve made that very clear, and this isn’t about the times, but it is about feeling fit and feeling strong….. Or not.

The Nottingham Robin Hood Marathon was completed by me a couple of weeks ago in 5:17:something – I could go and look up the ‘something’ but there isn’t really much point because it’s not about the time.
I didn’t feel strong.
I knew the build up was not good.
A little nodule, which has since been diagnosed as plantar fasciitis was niggling a little, then a tendon injury 5/6 weeks out meaning my longest training run was 16 miles at just the point when I was building up nicely with speed work, hills, tempo runs, you know… all the ‘proper’ running stuff!

(Around about this time, I also fell on my shoulder during a game of football, but my foot/ankle was so painful, I ignored this)

I’d like to give a full-on race report but I’ve never been good at that. If I did, it would go something like this:

Arrived in good time.
Hung around a bit.
Used loo numerous times.
Hung around a bit.
Chatted to some people at the start line who thought I was weird for chatting to them.
*BANG!*
Walked a bit.
Ran.
Walked.
Ran.
Walked.
Ran.
Walked
Ran.
(Repeat x lots – it was a walk/run strategy I’ll have know, to prevent tendinitis flare up and all that)
Got cramp.
Walked.
Walked.
Ran.
Saw family.
Ran.
Got cramp.
Walked.
Ran.
Toiletted.
Hid in toilet.
Had a little cry and slapped myself in the face.
Ran/walked.
Got stone in shoe.
Bent down to remove shoe,
CRAMP! Omg CRSMP!
My goodness! CRAMP SO BAD I EVEN MISSPELLED CRAMP JUST NOW!
Breathe… Breathe… Breathe… Thank goodness it wasn’t in both legs at the same time!…
…YOU IDIOT! – WHY DID YOU EVEN THINK THAT, LET ALONE SAY IT OUT LOUD? YOU MUPPET!!!
Talked to self lots.
“Just get round now and hope there’s a Mars Bar at the end”.
Finish.
Eat mars bar.

Or something like that, anyway..well… I’m now half-way through the wine and I’m not too worried about checking for correct chronology (that’s easier to type than say, right now).

There is an element that I’m happy to have made it round. And the fact my tendonitis did not return is good. Even the plantar fasciitis (which was never bad enough to stop me running) did not, and has not since, worsened.
But if I’m honest, I didn’t want to just ‘make it round’.
I’ve ‘made it round’ before. And I’ve been happy with that before.
Despite everything in the build-up, I think I was hoping to prove to myself that I wasn’t actually getting older and unfitter.

At least at the moment, it feels like I have proved the opposite and I’m finding that a little hard to deal with.
Especially as I have recently dragged myself to the docs with this:

…which in recent weeks has been really frustrating me as I can’t play tennis pain-free, swim pain-free, or ride a bike pain-free. I used to do push-ups or pull-ups periodically for strength training but find that too painful now as well.

I’m booked in for an x-ray next week.

To make myself feel better I paid for a proper hair-cut yesterday (I normally just grab my trimmers and shave it all off for a few months), and when he’d done, the barber offered to trim my eyebrows too!

I punched him*

*in my imagination only (in reality, I accepted the offer).