Better than expected :-)

Back to the blog world after a few weeks away. Two weeks ago I was complaining about a niggle in my ankle and noting that it would pass soon. I didn't run at all that week to give it a chance to clear, but unfortunately it didn't :-( (I also mentioned that it had changed from one ankle to the other. However, that was just my bad memory - it was on the left hand side all the time).

Last week, the whole family headed off to the snow for the week. As the title suggests, it was a whole lot better than we were expecting, but it was still the least snow that we've ever seen there. Thank goodness for snow guns! As an experiment, I tucked the good old Garmin in a jacket pocket one day just for fun. In the course of 6.5 hours, I travelled 52km (including lifts, etc) with a supposed top speed of 65km/h (which is rubbish - peaks of 40km/h are much more reasonable). The track is shown below.
(For those who know Thredbo, Crackenback was a bit icy that morning, so I only gave it one run). The good news is that we survived the week with no major new injuries (I have a superb bruise on my butt, but I'm not posting photos, OK?), and TA is "feeling no worse than before we went" in spite of a single-minded determination to have fun regardless of how much it hurt :-). However, the bad news is that my ankle has moved from niggle to hobble. I'll know more after visiting Dr Pain on Friday, but at this stage I'm pretty certain that C2S (at least) and W2B & Blackmores (probably) are dead in the water.

Pity :-(

Gnome

Talking Under Water

My back wasn't too good on Thursday and I wasn't sure how I would go at Runclub but I decided to go. It was pouring by the time I got to Rozelle and Runclub was cancelled. Lorna (the Owl) was keen for a run so she and I set off. We headed from KGP, past Montage, down the canal, crossed to the other side, came back over the footbridge to Montage and home to KGP. All up 6k and lots of chatting in 39 mins. We arrived back absolutely saturated to find Mr Wildthing waiting under the shelter for us. He had decided to run after we had set off and headed round the opposite direction of the Bay expecting to meet us. A quick chat, stretch and wipe down with towels and I headed into Balmain to pick up Gnome who is still resting his ankle. As we talked on the way home we realised that it was the first time this year I had run 2 days in a row and I was still upright :-). However I decided today would be a good rest day.

TA

Done like a Dinner

I decided to try to do my easy 5k at the bay this morning after a client's session. Luckily the weather cleared and I only got a bit wet as I took it easy and ran the 5k in 30.12 then walked the last k back to the car and did some stretches. My back held up well and I only ached a bit round the shoulder area. Things seem to be a bit better this week as I feel I'm moving from pain to just a tired,stiffness in my spinal area.

I'm feeling a bit more confident about going snowboarding next week although I have already booked a session with the physio down there just to be on the safe side.

TA

One Done

Monday was a rest day and today we were going to run early with Angela. I had a pretty crappy night and felt quite sore so when I heard rain I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

I felt better this afternoon and went to the gym and did my weights program for the week. The workout went well and I threw in a couple of challenges to myself. Tomorrow I hope to do an easy 5k at the Bay.

TA

From little acorns...

Thursday night was runclub and as I wasn't too good I only joined in for bits and pieces. I did the warmup and drills and managed 2x400 and then 1x800 and then just marshalled and encouraged on the hills loop.

Friday was a much needed rest as I was fairly sore all day.

Saturday morning I thought I was getting the flu but my day improved heaps. I trained the girls in the afternoon and then did a PT myself. It was a mixture of walking laps of the oval, bike intervals and supersets. I felt really good and my back wasn't sore. For the first time this year I have a program for this week - an easy 5k run and a full body weights session. From little acorns...

Sunday morning saw me meet Wildthing early at Homebush pool. I couldn't get into it so instead I helped her with her swimming practice for a while. Later I did about 800m of my own. I was very tired this afternoon and needed a sleep but realised tonight that I've had a second relative pain free day.

I've only got one niggle...

...it just keeps moving

Ange was not well, so our (increasingly rare) Tuesday morning run was off again. I was also a bit worried about my niggly ankle, so TA and I decided to do a run together. 5.5k, and her first time under 6:00 minute pace for 6 months (happy). My ankle was OK. I could feel it, but it wasn't getting any worse.

I didn't feel it at all during the day on Tuesday, so I decided to give it a good work out on Wednesday with a 10k tempo run (with 1k warm up and down). I covered the tempo section at 4:45 pace - a fraction slower than I wanted, but I'm definitely not beating myself up over it :-)

Run Club on Thursday was drills, 3x 400, more drills, 2x 800. Then over to Callan Park hills for a rolling session (run the hills, walk back the steepest part as recovery, jog the rest back and repeat (5 total). Abs work & stretch to finish. Felt good, and no ankle problems on either Wednesday or Thursday. Beauty. Got that one licked!

Saturday, as Sydneysiders will know, was bucketing rain. In keeping with my new she'll-be-right, not-going-to-obsess attitude (yep, really!), I stayed home - warm, dry and unexercised :-). This morning (Sunday), I headed down to Drummoyne for the Star. Yes, I could have stayed local and done the Cherrybrook fun run (Sparkie won the 5k), but I wanted to get a 30k in for the week. Firm warnings from Orunner about pace and sticking together had the desired effect, and for the first time I ran a Star in my allotted group without feeling pushed (thanks Dave!). Ended up doing 29k in 2:36 (including fluid transfer breaks).

The weird news is that my ankle niggle is back, exactly the same as last week, except on the other ankle! This is a part of me that has never hurt before, so why now, and why swapping sides? Very odd.

Anyhow, distance for week is 52k, maintaining the average for the last couple of months since picking up after Canberra. Mood? Happy (and certain that this niggle, too, will pass :-))

Gnome

Family are so important.

Although this morning I feel pretty shattered, things are going well. Yesterday I was able to do a second weights session for the week ( a first in over a month). I kept it low wt/high rep and didn't even need a sleep after it :-).

I saw Dr Pain in the arvo and he said my spine is still stiff but the other joints are not quite so bad. He then said my adjoining muscles were terrible but considered this to be a good thing! After discovering some extremely sensitive spots he says he's pleased with my improvement over the last month but gave the usual warning "It's a long process and will fluctuate between good and bad". He is off to Melbourne this weekend (with mentor Barbara Hungerford) to lecture on the special techniques he uses. He says he has used all of them on me, plus some he won't be teaching.

That night I ran my 'Wed Wobs' group and then we celebrated Micro TA's 16th birthday. It was a fun night with all the kids as we chatted and ate and excitedly discussed our upcoming snow trip in 10 days.

However, my thoughts and prayers today are with Dr Pain and his family as they gather together for his mum's funeral.

TA

Testing Our Bodies

I've realised over the last week that the medicines must be starting to work and I'm starting to feel much better in myself and the body feels like it's ready to get going but is just being limited by the arthritis. After months of fatigue this is very exciting. So this week I wanted to see if I could back up for a second run within days with the aim to build up to 3x30mins a week.

After a rest yesterday for both of us, we headed out this morning for better or worse. Gnome was interested to see how his ankle would go and apart from the usual soreness and stiffness of the morning I was determined to try. We both agreed to call it quits if we got too sore.

About 2k's in I asked Gnome how his ankle was. He said it wasn't really painful but he was aware of it. He asked how I was and I said that's how my whole body felt, so we kept going. At 4.4k I needed a break so we walked the 400m up the hill and then ran another k along a fairly flat area before then walking the last 600m uphill to home. We got back in one piece but will see how Gnome's ankle goes during the day. So in the end we ran about 5.4k and walked a 1k. It felt smoother than Saturday and the garmin confirmed that. What's more, for the first time since whenever, I managed to run at sub 6min pace.

So as Dr Pain says " Enjoy the good days!" ( and take an extra pain killer when needed :-).

TA

Remembering Good Advice.

Disclaimer - Under instruction! from Gnome to blog so if boring feel free to skip to something else.

29/7- walk 25 mins
30/7 - rest
1/7- weights/walking session
2/7 - 60min water walking/swimming
3/7 - rest
4/7- 60mins gym ( walking/cycling)
5/7 - 40 min walk then a low impact aerobic/strength session - it involved walking 5 flights of stairs, doing a strength exercise at the top and repeating this twice more then running the stairs 3x and then repeating this whole sequence 5 times .

Later that day I saw Dr Pain and had my session while "Micro TA" saw another physio in the practice for an AFL injury. Somehow he has managed to tear his VMO, a tiny muscle near the knee but will be ok for footy next week. Dr Pain suggested to this physio he check Micro carefully for signs of parental abuse ( lol :-)

6/7 - 40min water walking/swimming then everything but the 3kTT at runclub. I got to be the timekeeper instead - maybe that's why Gnome PB'd............
7/7 - rest and CR drinks.
8/7 - 30min run with Gnome and then 30min walk
9/7 - 50min walk

I met James (B+) at CR drinks and we were chatting about tris and how I bought my new bike and haven't felt well enought to use it. He reiterated some advice given to me earlier this year to only do enough training each day that I can recover in time for the next. It's something I'm trying to follow.

Oops just checked the time - gotta go and get some recovery sleep :-).

TA

Accidental progression run

Not a bad week, but it didn't start too well. I got a cold at the beginning of the week, and my nose was running faster than my feet ever could, so Tuesday's and Wednesday's runs went out the window. By Wednesday it was coming good, so Thursday night's Run Club was back on the agenda. I have to admit, though, that I was not particularly excited when I found out that it was Time Trial night. Normally I don't mind time trials, but coming off the sickness, I just didn't feel like running flat out.

Anyhow, I figured that I'd do the first km at pace and see how I was going. At that point, it turned out that I was on pb pace, so I kept going - very evenly as it turns out - and ended up with an 8 second pb of 11:40. Very, very surprised, and happy too.

I was going to run on Friday to make up for the missed days earlier in the week, but Tiger Angel set me straight - you don't make up sessions. There lies madness (and injury), so I waited till Saturday midday and TA and I went for a run together (yay!). We did 5k at 6:30 pace, and then she headed home and I kept going for a nice bush run. 65 minutes all up, but I ended it with a little niggle in my ankle.

I was intending to do the 10 Bridges run with Striders this morning, but last night I realised that
a) it was going to be very cold, and
b) I was only going to get a few hours sleep if I got up in time to get over there.
Consequently, I switched to doing a double of my local 14k loop. Unfortunately, although that meant that I could get extra sleep, it didn't do anything about the cold. Sheesh, was it cold! I've never felt anything like it! The backs of my hands were so cold they ached, and that's never happened before. Ice was everywhere, all over the cars and the lawns. The sun rose about half way through the run and it started to warm up, but it was only when I was out of shade (not often) that I felt comfortable.

The odd thing that I noticed was that as I got warmer, I got faster, so the day turned into an accidental progression run. I started off at about 6 minute pace in the freezing cold, and ended up doing 4:50s in the full sun. Remind me not to race in those kinds of temperatures... (TA, wisely choosing not to run two days in a row, took the dog for a walk, but she had gloves, a fleecy jacket and a beanie. I know who was the smarter of the two of us :-)

Sad thing was that the niggle in the ankle popped its head up again. I'm going to have to watch it with C2S, W2B and Blackmores all coming up.

Gnome

The post-Canberra honeymoon continues

Before Canberra, I was told that there's be a golden period of PBs after the immediate recovery was over. As I've noted before, this has turned out to be true, but it's also going longer than I would ever have expected. The field at Striders on Saturday was smaller than normal because of the GC mara, but it was perfect running weather - cool but not cold, and still. I figured that another shot at the pb was on the cards, so I aimed to go out at 4:15 and see if I could stick to it for a 42:30 finish. Nailed it for the first k, and never varied by more than 5 seconds over the rest of the race (apart from the last k at 4:05).

Result? 42:43, a 26 second PB. Freespirit keeps predicting absurd results for these races (his suggestion this time was 41:45!!??), but a few months ago 42:43 would have sounded absurd, so maybe he's just a man ahead of his time :-)

Now, setting that aside, what else happened this week? Tuesday was still too ugly after W2G - no way was I ready to run. Things got better during the day, so on Wednesday morning I gave it a shot on a special change-my-mind-any-time-want-and-home-isn't-too-far-away course. It wasn't really pretty, but I seemed to loosen up as I went along and ended up doing 12.5k at a 5:20 pace.

Run Club on Thursday was a 2x800, then 10 min of 30s on, 30s off, followed by 5x400 with ~45s recovery. I felt really tired and muscle sore by the end - the lunges at the end were sheer murder :-(

Finally, this morning I headed out to Lindfield for the Strider Star. Now, as I have commented in recent weeks, I am focussing on hills more over the next few months, but this morning was insane! Here's the elevation graph, and I cut out one 5k section that apparently has the worst hills of the lot (didn't know that when I cut it, honest!).

I covered the 25k at 5:40 pace; I really didn't want to walk one single step of the way, but that last little pitch in the graph was a set of stairs and it just broke me. I was a very tired little bunny when I finished this morning. Still, every one of those hills is another hill in the bank come Willy to Billy time, so I guess it's worth it.

Total for week - 53k
Total for month - 207k

Gnome