Saturday

On the road, and sweltering.

We had a nice relaxed night yesterday, at a barbeque round pete & em's. I even treated myself to a glass of wine (see that boat- it's pushed right out!) Turns out iced tea is an excellent beer substitute- much less sickly than most other drinks, & great for hydrating.

Speaking of hydrating, water intake's going to be all important today - tom's driving us up just now and it's very hot indeed, so keeping the levels topped right up is order of the day.

Latest weather reports are still hot, but mercifully predicting some rain showers in the early afternoon tomorrow. C'mon Scotland- surely a bit of rain isn't too much to ask for!

Alex is making us home made lasagna this eve (star!), then an early night. As you might tell from the way this post is jumping about between different topics, the nerves are back. Hopefully a nice chilled out eve will settle them down so we can get a decent sleep.

Today's mantra: it's just another run.

It's just another run.

Thursday

Did the Manchester 10k at the weekend. I wasn't going for any particular time, but felt good so ended up going quite quick- I got 42:25, which is quite a chunk off my previous personal best. It's strange how sometimes, if you take the pressure off, you end up doing better than you expected anyway.

I felt a slight twinge from my knee around 4km, but it went away & didn't come back for the rest of the race. Excellent news, except it didn't feel all that great later in the evening. After a few days of rest, light cross training & stretches, it's pretty much gone, so it looks like I'm on for Sunday.

It's an odd waiting game at the moment- we can't go out, but can't do any useful training either, so want it to be Sunday and get on with it.

I had a quick look at the weather. I figure it's probably pretty accurate at this point, and it's looking a bit on the hot side- 21 degrees and patchy clouds. Not great news, so slow with plenty of water is order of the day.

3 days. Bring it on.

Three lessons in sports therapy, learnt the hard way. Part 3

Lesson 3: Iliotibial Band Syndrome is bad (but hopefully not really bad?)

Remember that knee I was telling you about?

During my next 7 mile run, it was fine for the first 5 miles. During the 4 mile run after that, it was fine for the first two miles.
Recognising this was heading in the wrong direction, I held back. I didn't do any running that weekend, and went to a physio the Monday after.

Turns out I've got something quite common called iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS).

There's a band of tissue running down the outside of the leg, from hip to knee joint, that's key in keeping your knees straight when running. On the left side, it's rubbing against the knee, causing inflamation. In my case, it's caused by excess tension in my glutial muscles (I am, quite literally, a tight-arse), meaning they can't do their job properly.

The upshot is I'm basically fine, until quite a way into a run (about 6 miles, currently), when it starts hurting, and if I ran through it, it starts hurting a lot. So I don't :)

Good new is that it's nothing difficult to fix- the inflamation should go down with rest & ibuprofen, and I've got a foam roller & some exercises I'm doing everyday to release tension in the thigh.

I've decided there's nothing to be gained a this point by trying to do long runs, so I've just got to try to keep as fit as poss over the next few weeks without exhasperating it. I went for a swim last weekend, which was good (well, I hate front crawl, so not that good, but still). I did a couple of hours on cross-trainers at the gym this week, which I seem to be able to use without feeling hit, which is very good news.

It's frustrating, cos it doesn't hurt at all when I'm just walking about, and the rest of me is hankering to do some really long runs, but gonna resist.

I've got a mini dress rehearsal next weekend, with the Manchester 10km. My brother's coming up to run it, and my folks are coming down to watch. I'm gonna do it, though I'm not going for a PB.

If I get serious issues on that one, I might have to reconsider, but for the moment I'm still gonna at least give edinburgh a shot.


W.

Three lessons in sports therapy, learnt the hard way. Part 2

Lesson 2: ice baths are surprising good
The sciencey bit here is a little more controversial, but it's thought that by sitting in feckin' cold water for 10 minutes or so helps to:
- numb your aching legs, stopping them from hurting, and
- cause a rush of blood to the legs, flushing out the built up lactic acids, reducing the time for recovery

Studies into these effects have had varied results, but I thought I'd give it a go.

Luckily, the first run I decided to do this on (the 20-mile epic from the last post) was a warm day, so it didn't feel like that much of a chore when I got back. I filled the bath deep enough to cover my legs with cold water, then added a bag of ice (with a second back for top-ups.

Warm tea on-hand, I jumped in, and swore. A Lot.

After about 2 minutes of violent shivering, your body gets used to it, and it isn't actually as unpleasant as I was expecting. Your legs go very cold and kinda numb, stopping them from hurting, which helped. After about 12 minutes of this, I got out, rubbed feeling back in my legs, and waited for them to warm up a bit before a very welcome, and very hot, shower.

It's not exactly a controlled trial, but I certainly found I felt a lot better than I would have expected the next day. I'm convinced enough to keep trying ice baths after long runs. Except, right now, I can't do any long runs anyway. More on that in my next post...