Getting there slowly...

Well this week was a little better. Just about all of the swelling has gone down in the knee. I have been applying voltaren before bed and wrapping it in glad wrap.

Continuing with the VMO strengthening exercises and I have been taping the knee over but I had a reaction to the tape which left redness and itchy lumps all over my knee. I have changed my work shoes to something flatter and more supportive which is good considering all of the walking that I am doing now with the new job.

I think one more week should do it. I will see how I go in a weeks time and possibly go for a run next Sunday. I'm starting to really miss it now. Off to Owly and Tesso's party tonight! Yay!

Going nowhere fast..

Injury Report:

I thought it was time to check in with a report on how my injury is going after 2 weeks now of no running. I haven't really had much improvement at all and I know this injury can take along time to get better so I'm trying to remain positive.

I did all of the stretches etc... in the first week and didn't do much at all in the second week . The outcome was the same.

New Job Report:

Great, I love it. Extremely busy though. Sorry for not checking on Blogs, will try to this week.

I'm out!

Wednesday 13th

I have decided not to run the Half this Sunday. After some advice and suggestions from several runners including: Easy Tiger, Eagle, Tesso, Clairie, Ellie, Ewen and my Physio. I had to face the fact that It would be best for me not to run at all.

The hardest thing was telling Ellie because I was so looking forward to running with her and I know how excited she was. At least I know she will have others around her during the race and Gnomey doing the pacing. So I will be cheering instead!

I went to the Physio and had some intense treatment along with a video of me running on the treadmill to try to diagnose the problem and see if there was anything that really stood out. The exercise therapist took footage of me walking firstly and then running (even that hurt) The most obvious thing was I flick my right leg out when I run and somehow twist it back in again but land on the outside of my right foot. This constant flicking has aggrevated the itb, adductors, sartorius and hamstrings and has created a tightness in the entire right side. I also have a lot of movement in my hips suggesting more core strengthening is required.

So I walked away with 20 million exercises and stretches to do and was told by the Physio not to run until all of the pain has gone. I didn't realise just how long I had been running with the pain until I really thought about it - a long time. I think I even got used to running with the pain (as Clairie suggested) but I know my training has really suffered and with much bigger things on the horizon (6ft - main goal) I need to get rid of these injuries so that I can do some serious training over Summer.

So I have basically wiped my calendar clean for the next few months. FF Marathon is definately out : ( I can't complain though, I have had a pretty good year and I'm really happy with what I have achieved so far. I would like to be fit enough to do the Central Coast Half in December but I will keep it there as a "maybe" at this stage.

The Blog may become a little boring and with starting my new job next week, I may not have much time to Blog for the first few weeks until things settle down anyway. Looking forward to cheering and repaying all of those that have cheered for me! : )

Nothing....

That's what I have done running wise since Saturday...Nothing! A bit frustrating but I know that my leg will be better off for the rest. (Hopefully)

Sunday 10th

Nothing

Monday 11th

ET Massage and coffee with ET and Lulu : )

Tuesday 12th

I took myself off to the Doctor because I woke up in so much pain. My leg felt so so so sore. I could hardly walk and I was nearly in tears because of the pain. He prescribed me some sort of strong pain killer that made me feel very relaxed and it numbed the pain.

Swim for 45mins - I can still swim : ) Yay! I actually felt pretty good once I got into it. Not sure how far I went, I really should take more notice of that instead of just going up and back happily not even thinking about how far I'm going. 4 laps of water running - geez that's frustrating!

The plan for the rest of the week is to rest the leg and get rid of the pain, keep stretching heaps and hopefully I can keep up with Ellie on Sunday. That will be a full weeks rest on the leg - no running. I would like to do some more swimming just to stay active.

When I was eating dinner last night (9pm!) I was thinking about Clairies new regime and perhaps need to take a leaf out of her book with trying not to eat dinner so late.

Raindrops keep falling on my head..

Saturday 9th

I ventured out to Joggers for the 7am run. I picked a nice rainy day to make a comeback. It was actually not that bad during the run and I felt really good out there. The E course was rather hilly but I felt reasonably strong on the hills. Pity I didn't take much notice of the map because I had to stop and make sure I was going the correct way a few times which made the run a little slower.

The leg felt ok but I could feel the hamstrings working on the downhills and I had some PF pain afterwards resulting in having to ice most of Saturday afternoon.

Sunday 10th

No run - Leg too sore. (I ate way too much junk food)

Plenty of stretching and icing.

Downhill girl returns...

Thursday 7th

Rest Day - Weights and core abs

Not allowed to cycle : (

Friday 8th

Well after much procastinating I made it out to the local trail for an 8km run. I hadn't done this one before but I had always wondered what it was like. Still trying to be nice to my legs, the ground was slightly damp and I found the trail to be nice and spongey.

In fact in some parts it was a bit slippery and I had a bit of a tumble as I was negotiating a corner. I fell on my sore knee but it didn't hurt. I landed in some nice soft mud : ) All up the run took about an hour. I crossed the same river 4 times and made 3 wrong turns but it was fun. I will know where to go next time. Really nice way to end the working week.

Approx 8km with a few deviations (I forgot to turn the Garmin on)

One step closer.

Firstly, thank you all so much for your advice. I really appreciate it and I have taken on board the comments that you all have left for me here. Thanks!

Wednesday 6th

In my attempt to start on option 1, I continued with my training program and did 15km but all on grass. I ran at the Bernie Mullane Sports complex and each lap was approx 1km. So 16 boring laps later I was finished.

My leg was not any better at all in fact the pain became quite intense at one point and I was pulling one of those "Granny" faces as ET calls it. Aerobically I felt great and I was running easy with not much effort at all really.

Later in the day I went to the Physio. We have pinpointed the Sartorius muscle as one of the major causes for concern. I recieved some treatment, exercises, icing and will follow up with some more ET massages over the next couple of weeks. As most of you suggested, the bike is out for now.

I have made the decision not to race the Half in just over a weeks time. Even if I do get the leg sorted out before then i haven't done enough speedwork and I would only end up being disappointed with my run. I had a chat to Gnomey last night who is going to be the 2hr pacer at the Half. So I asked Ellie if I could run with her instead : ) I am really excited to able to share in her first Half Marathon experience. Another reason is I will be starting my new job the very next day and I don't want to turn up cranky and tired for my first day.

I have set the Central Coast Half in December as my target Half Marathon before the end of the year. Besides, I will be doing all of the long runs at SMC this Summer to build up for 6ft so plenty of opportunities to record some decent 21km times.

Time: 1hr 19mins
Distance: 15.13km
Avg Pace: 5:15/km

Decisions??

Monday 4th

After missing out on one of my crucial long runs yesterday I was really lacking in motivation today despite feeling a whole lot better as far as the cold was concerned. With a "Rest" day scheduled on the program I decided to stick to my usual Monday routine and did some weights and cycling.

We all know that you can never catch up on lost or missed training so I wasn't even going to try to make up for that and I was hoping the rest would help my leg to settle down a bit.

Cycle - 1hr - fluid trainer

Weights and core abs - 25mins

Tuesday 5th

Today was one of the most horrible runs ever! I had 3ktt down on the program and I thought it would be a good gauge for me to see exactly where I am at for upcoming events like the Half in a few weeks time and the FFM in October.

At the start and for the entire warmup my leg felt ok..but, just ok though. I did heaps of stretching yesterday and plenty of poking and proding on the sore spots to try to loosen them up a bit. It then came to the time for me to do the 3ktt and it all went down hill from there. I was running fine for the first 600m then the crippling pain started in my leg/knee and I abandoned the time trial all together opting to slow jog home - even that hurt!

So I have come to the realisation that I need to make a decision on how to fix up this pesky leg injury. I haven't been able to really do any quality training since the GCM. I have only done two painfree speedwork sessions since the GCM and the rest has just been going from day to day trying to get my leg to a point where it doesn't ache. This usually only lasts for a short period of time then it's sore again. I have a few options but I'm not entirely sure what I will do just yet. So here's what I have been thinking:

1. Continue to train but with less intensity (not fast, no speedwork). Keep up the ET massages and heaps of stretching. Do some faster sessions on the bike (not sure if this is contributing to my problems?)

2. Stop running until the injury is better. Keep up the ET massages and just cycle. (Which would mean no Half Marathon in two weeks time and possibly no FF Marathon)

3. Just do nothing at all and become a couch potato and work really hard on my Cadbury's Family Block PB.

No prizes for guessing that the number one option is the one that I want. The fact is, I really need to let this leg heal properly because I'm not getting to where I want to be right now and things won't improve if I don't take action, now! I want to run faster and I want to run another Marathon but I can't carry this injury any longer, it's starting to get me down.

So I guess I could start out with number one and if that doesn't work then review and move on down the list. Who knows, I could be the first female to represent Australia in eating chocolate ; )

Striders 10k-North Head

Saturday 2nd

Woke up feeling very average and almost abandoned going to the Striders 10k. But I made the effort and drove over to North Head. I wasn't expecting too much from the run after backing up from W2B last week, a cold which has taken a turn for the worse and total lack of speedwork.

One of my goals for this year is to go sub 45min 10k and just before I ran the Gold Coast I think I was capable of doing it but never had the opportunity to run that distance. I have since been training for the longer stuff again and I have been very slack with the speed sessions which I intend to make sure I add more of these to the program.

Caught up with the usual Cr's and other runners before hand. Once we were off I managed to get into pace reasonably well but I always hate those first few km's they seem to really hurt. I sat just behind the 45min pacer which is more than I had done at Lane Cove last month. At the 3km mark I felt reasonably good and realised that if I could keep up the pace I could possibly duck under the 45min mark.

After the first loop around and coming back to the drink station I felt a sharp pain in my chest and started to have some problems breathing. This is where I backed it off a little bit and tried to breath as best I could. I had even tossed up on wether or not to pull out at the 5k mark but I pressed on hoping things would improve. I still managed to have the pacer in my sights but I knew they were pulling away from me as I slowed a bit more. Funnily enough my leg and knee wasn't too bad. I had spent several hours stretching the night before so that obviously helped.

At about the 8km stage I didn't feel much better and I found it hard to clear the "yuckies" in my chest so I could get some air in. Only 2 km to go I told myself and at this stage I knew that I was too far from the 45min pacer to even worry about that time. The last 2 km were pretty crappy and I managed to finish in a time of 45:58 - Which ended up being a 15sec PB for me anyway.

Breakky was great afterwards with TA and the Gnome (great to see him back running) Ellie, Will, Papa Luigi and Uncle Dave.

Sunday 3rd

Woke up for my long run and in short I had to go back home after 3km. My knee was unbearably sore and my adductors were aching and to top it off I couldn't breath : (

Time for a rest! Happy Fathers Day to all the Dad's out there.