Time flies
It's been a busy week with a couple of days in Wagga and I've been keeping up some activity. Thursday night was stroke correction at the pool and there are definite signs of improvement. I might actually get above a snails pace one day.Friday I tried out my first 8/12 session. See discussion here. A tough session and I had to resort to counting strides to get the timing right. Felt like I'd done a good workout afterwards and it was a good way of testing out my hip which didn't object to the faster pace either.Last night it was Razor's 30th birthday party which involved eating lots of Lebanese food and socialising with runners and non-runners alike. I managed to fall over at the end of the evening and managed to scrape my toe, and bruise my knee and hip as well as tip red wine on myself. I hadn't even been drinking that much, just missed a step!Ellie and I had arranged to meet at the park at 7.30 for a run. I wasn't sure what the hip would be up for but managed an hour and 9km at a nice leisurely pace around the park. We put on some vanity fartlek when we passed the squad although we agreed we were probably wasting our energy as our surge would still seem extremely slow to them!Hip held up pretty well, it's not 100% but each run seems to be less sore. Easy does it for another week or so and then I should be OK. It's another busy week this week, with a dash to Brisvegas tomorrow and then off to Perth for a few days on Tuesday. I will attempt to keep up the exercise and the blog!
Back on my feet
Today was a good day. I walked for about 5 mins and then ran for 40 mins and 6kms! Yay! Hip/glute is feeling a lot better and I think me and Easy Tiger have fixed it. A slight bit of residual soreness but I'm sure that will gradually go if I take it easy.I also had one of my bestest friends in town. I travelled around the world with my friend Kiki and she now lives in Northern Cyprus so I don't see her very often. She arrived on a flying visit through Sydney yesterday on her way back to Cyprus. Today we did the walk from the Taronga Zoo to Balmoral and then had lunch at the Bathers Pavilion. A perfect way to spend a perfect Sydney day.My hip was a little bit sore after the 8km bushwalk but feels fine again now and I'll make sure I stretch before bedtime!Off to Wagga Wagga in the morning for a couple of days and I hope to slip in another short run whilst I'm there.. fingers crossed there's no ill effects from today!
1 step forward and 2 back
A short run this morning of only about 1.5km before I resorted to walking. It's my own fault as I did a Step class in the gym on Weds and it irritated my hip. Silly, silly, silly.I've been keeping pretty busy with Pilates etc and have even ventured into the swimming pool a few times and I think I'll stick to swimming and water running for now as I know that doesn't make things worse.I had an interesting trip to the physio this morning. CR Brizza was recommended to me by CR Colin. Brizza works in the rehab unit of the local private hospital so my appointment was in the presence of lots of oldies doing their rehab and asking Brizza what he was doing with the young girl..hehe. They seemed to particularly enjoy me running up and down the corridor and doing glute stretches.Brizza is a biomechanist/physio and I wanted his view on whether there was something fundamental that needed addressing or if there were any particular weaknesses. The verdict was that biomechanically not bad, which is good. He felt I was probably over-training and pushing my body over the pain threshold, not just running but doing 3 or 4 other sessions a week of pilates and gym. So I need to scale back a bit and build back up very gradually. Otherwise I'm always running with tired bits or muscle imbalances. He's added a few extra stretches and strengthening exercises to my ever growing repertoire. My niggling achilles is caused by a very stiff back of the foot that only massage will keep at bay. He also recommended taking fish oil as it's a natural anti-inflammatory and should raise my tolerance to injuries a bit. Other than that there's not a whole lot more I can do and I've got the sort of body/skin type that is susceptible to soft tissue injury. Good things to do are swimming, water running, spin/cycling, pilates and yoga. Bad things are Step (found that out the hard way), lunges and squats. I thought that was interesting considering how often physios give you that to do. I should do my leg stengthening with ankle weights so I'm not working against my biomechanics which I am if I do squats and lunges and the foot is anchored on the floor.He also told me I run like a tri-athelete. Not sure what that means but I'm sure it's a good thing!So as I run like a triathlete I did a swim squad session last night which was good fun and really hard work. I was glad I was using fins for most of it. The instructor picked up some fundamentals such as I'm not really using my arms; you can't get much more fundamental than that! I'm trying to use my legs too much and also, I'm not taking enough air in with each breath so I'm getting puffed really quickly. Lots to work on there and it will give me something to play with while I'm not doing much running.
Slowly, slowly
We're getting there. Easy Tiger definitely hit the spot yesterday as I felt a lot better this morning. I walked for about 800 m, stretched and then took off through Queen's Park and the middle of Centennial and back home for a total of 5km running. I had one or two short walk breaks to see how things felt in between, which helped as well.Things felt a lot better with only the odd twinge here and there, so I'm encouraged things are going in the right direction. My hip is a little bit sore now but I'll fix that with the tennis ball later. I probably should have done slightly less but I'll have a couple of days off again now before I try again. I've another physio appointment tomorrow so we'll see what he says.
Quick progress report
It will be quick because progress is slow! But some progress is being made. Two visits to ET and things are feeling a lot better.
Last week's visit to the physio was hopeful. No serious damage just fatigued glutes which need strengthening. He gave me permission to try a run at the weekend which I did.
I made 25 mins before things started to hurt so better than nothing. Will try another run tomorrow. In the meantime I've been doing my exercises, going to the gym and trying to keep vaguely motivated about life without running.
More (good) news soon.
Not a good start to the year
A quick update on where I'm up to. Not very far is the answer. I tried a slower run on Thursday but sadly my hip/itb still gave me trouble after a km or two. I plodded on. It started really pouring with rain and I was heading back to home thinking I was going to have to walk the last few kms home rather than do any further damage. Not so. As if by magic my shining knight in a shining Alfa (Mr lulu) drew up along side me as I plodded up Alison Rd. He'd been out doing the final measure of the Centennial Park CR 5km course and his timing was perfect!
So it looks like even slow running is a small problemette despite my optimism.
Friday I was sulking and couldn't even muster the energy for the gym but I did perk up when I had coffee with Ellie and Jen in the city. I also had fun being the time keeper, and drinks stop on the CR 5/10km summer series held at Centennial Park. I acted as marshall, starter, gave people their splits, gave Mr lulu a pep talk at the 5km point, and then provided drinks. I'd like to have been running but if you can't run, cheer or support is the CR motto!
Saturday I was fed-up with being fed-up so I went to the gym and did 15 mins on the bike, and 15mins on the elliptical machine to establish if either of those was an option whilst running is off the menu. Seems that either are OK and didn't aggravate my hip/itb as long as I didn't push the resistance too much. Followed off with a Pilates class.
Sunday I went down to Clovelly with my water belt to do some water running. I'd been for a bit of a swim Sat afternoon so I knew the water was chilly at the moment but it was freezing this morning. I lasted 35 mins before my feet and hands were numb and I staggered out onto the beach. Followed up by some stretching and strengthening whilst waiting for Mr lulu to appear.
He'd done a nice 24 km run and finished off with a very cooling dip in the water.
Fortunately, Easy Tiger is back tomorrow and I'm booked in at lunchtime so we'll see what he has to say. I've also been given (by CR Colin) a physio who is a runner and a biomechanist so I might try and see him this week and see what he verdict is. I'm doing various glute and calf strengthening but it's probably a good idea to get a proper diagnosis before I go much further.
First SWEAT of the year
I found it hard to sleep last night but still managed to wake up before the alarm went off at 5.30 to get up to go to SWEAT.
A big turnout for the first session of the year and everyone keen to get moving in the damp Sydney morning. The usual drills and strides and then off to our various start points. I had 5 600s on the programme but after the drills and strides my hip/itb was already complaining a bit so I let Sean know that I'd do what I could before I fell apart.
One rep at 3.15 and the knee started to complain so I stretched it out during the next rep and then joined my group for the 3rd rep 3.14. I knew it was probably silly to continue so I spent the next rep stretching and then headed back to the pavilion and waited for Mr lulu to stop flying around the park.
My hips a bit sore now and it was probably very optimistic to think it would put up with speed work at this stage. Nothing wrong with a bit of optimism though! A little more tlc is required so I'll stick to the gym tomorrow and try a slow run on Thursday. I should be OK if I stick to slow running and we'll call it low heart rate training to make it sound better.
