5k Local Run

Last night when it cooled down abit, I decided to tackle the local area for a slow run. I live in Everton Hills in Brisbane and as the name suggest there are a few hills around. I started off a bit slow and slowly eased into it, my knee felt very good however as tempting as it was I just ploddered along at a comfortable pace.

My last run was 2 days prior and that was on a grass track, but given the way my leg felt last night I would prefer at this stage to run on a harder surface that is predictable ie no hidden pot holes etc.

I covered the distance in under 30 mins, and took it cautious down the hills about 6.5 - 8 min Km pace according to the garmin. When I got home I was sweating alot, and decided that would probably be the last run before sundays effort. However writing this, I think that I won't be able to hold out and will go for another run before then.


Dist= 5.13km
Time= 29.18
Pace= 5.42/km

28 Days.....

Yesterday was 28 days since I had my surgery. I was thinking about the coversation that I had with the surgeon before I decided to have the operation done. I said to him "will this have any long term side effects with respect to running", and his answer was "no, you will be a little sore for a couple of weeks and back to normal not long after that". Maybe I was a little naive thinking that I would be running close to my normal 'unfit' times by now, or I just didn't listen to the Doctor and only heard what I wanted to hear. I would like to think that I had unrealistic expectations as I didn't take the decision to have the operation lightly, and maybe my definition of long term and his definition are 'slightly' different.


I went away for a few days over the Christmas break and didn't make any plans to do any exercise whilst away. There is always way too much food and alchol to be consumed to even comtemplate running. For two days I lived a lifestyle that is usually foreign to me and felt horrible on Monday the day we left to come back to Brisbane. Before we left that morning I decided to strap the shoes on and attempt to go for my first outdoor jog. We were staying about 200m from the beach at Agnes Water so I thought it would be a little softer to run on the compact sand than the road. I ended up doing 2km at about 6min/km pace, which felt good, the humidity was bad though and I was dripping with sweat after 2km of relatively slow running.

Tuesday 27th, as I said at the start 28 days since surgery and only 5 days to my public running debut. My wife went shopping yesterday with some friends so I was home alone. We got a Dvd for Xmas called having a baby, which is a pregnancy documentry so I watched that, yes I was bored.

It was about 1pm and couldn't stand staying home any longer. I felt like going for a run, however I knew I would pay later as the temperature was very hot but I still went. I slapped on the sunscreen and grabbed water and went to a local 400m track. I haven't ran on undulating areas yet and thought that a track would be a good start. I planned for 5k, the same distance I ran the weekend before the surgery and as the run this sunday. The knee felt alright, I think that I have about 80% of my range of movement. The impact feels weird though, the thigh is still weak and so I have to use my calf muscles alot more of that side to support the weight. To do this I run more on my toes on that side, so it looks like I limp abit aswell. I ended up stopping once for about 15 secs to grab a drink but apart from that I completed my first 5 k (12.5 laps) with no drama's.

Lap 1- 2.04
Lap 2- 2.02
Lap 3- 2.01
Lap 4- 1.58
Lap 5- 1.59
Lap 6- 1.58
Lap 7- 1.59
Lap 8- 1.56
Lap 9- 1.56
Lap 10- 2.06
Lap 11- 1.58
Lap 12- 2.12(drink break)
Lap 13- 54 secs (200m)

It feels good to actually post a time :)

Total time was 25.08 just over 5min/k pace, 28 days on and 7 mins slower!

Merry Xmas

Just a quick note, I am going away for a couple of days over Xmas, so I thought would be a good time to say thanks for all the supportive comments that I have received over the last 3 weeks or so, they mean alot. I have enjoyed reading many of your blogs and will continue to do so in the new year. I hope everybody has a great Xmas and New year, Enjoy ! Dont hold back as 2006 will be a big year for most of us, and hopefully we will cross paths at some stage. Cheers, Shane.

It's been a while!

Yesterday was the second last day that my Gym will be opened until after the new year, so I had to make the most of it. I got up relatively early, for a person on holidays that is and went to the gym. I am beginning to enjoy the elliptical trainer as it is a good cardio workout and seems to be helping my knee alot. I ended up doing 30 mins on it 20 mins in the Fwd direction and 10 minutes in reverse, which is definently the hardest direction.

That afternoon saw me again make an appearance at the gym, to do another 30 min stint on the trainer. My legs felt a little fatigued from the morning session at first, but then seemed to get better as the workout progressed. My wife had dropped me off on the way to work so I had to walk home, I have been walking around rather stiff leggered (spelling ?), so I really concentrated on trying to walk 'normal'. By the time I arrived home my knee had loosened up significantly which is good news.

Today, comprised of a morning swim approx 1200 m, I was planning to do a swimfit class which is a group session like a swim squad with someone helping to correct technique. However this came to an abrupt end when everyman and his dog rocked up, so I decided to swim on my own.

Tonight I went to the gym for the last time before it closes and done another 30 mins on the elliptical trainer, I then went to the treadmill and began to walk just to get my legs working again. Getting off the machine has a very similar feeling to riding a bike and then attempting to run straight after. I walked for a Km at 10min/km pace and was feeling alright, I had a drink and went back.

I decided to give a slow jog a crack my aim being 1 km, I increase the pace to an uncomfortable walking speed and began to jog holding on to the rails to get used to the feeling again. I kept increasing the pace slowly each time, until the last 200m when I reached max speed of 10.4 km. I must tell you that it wasn't the most comfortable thing to do, but it felt good just the same. I have a long way to go in a short time, just over a week to my running debut, however looking back to 3 days ago I was still struggling to walk faster than 16min/km. I ended up covering that Km in 6:55

2 Day update

I thought I'd add a couple of photos showing the harshest most arid country I have ever been and probably never experience again. The picture showing a track, is a very flat 2.5 km dirt/sand road that I use to train on a few months ago, the second photo is of my digital thermometer. If you take notice of the display you will see what I mean by harsh. It is reading 53 degrees and 9% hunidity at 8:45am. I use to run this track a few times a week, trying to achieve at least 2 laps, which was the most difficult 5k I have ever done. The air was so dry and the heat so extreme I didn't even contemplate running until after 7:30 pm. The day this temp was recorded, ambient temp got to about 56-57 degrees Celcius and out in direct sunlight approx 62-65. This is actually the friendly place of Iraq in Mid July (Summer), I now understand why there aren't so many endurance athletes coming from there, excluding the obvious reasons of course.
















19 Dec 05

I woke up feeling pretty good and decided to go to the pool, on the way there I realised I forgot my watch which annoyed me. I hate doing anything exercise related without something to measure your performance by, however it was getting hot so I continued to the pool. I didn't complete a range of distances really, just praticed technique and trying to breath on both side without swallowing half the pool. I swam for a total of about 45 mins, in this I included some work with the kick board and some water running which felt good.

That afternoon I rode the bike trainer for twenty minutes, and took one of the dogs for a slow walk. I wore the garmin and walked 2.2km in 32 minutes, which is double the distance I walked a few days ago at 2min per Km faster, so there is progress.

20 Dec 05

Today was pretty slack, I didn't do anything all day and decided to go to the Gym about 530 pm.
I was reading Lulu's Blog and she said that she is doing some cross training. She mentioned how she done a session on the elliptical training, a machine I totally forgot about, so I decided to give it a go. I done 25 minutes in the forward direction and 5 minutes in reverse. This was a great workout for my legs, the no impact feature is great. I was planning to do this for the next week, before my Gym membership runs out on the 29th Dec, but the gym has decided to close for renovations until the 9 Jan. Tomorrow is the last day it is open so I will do a session tomorrow. They have said that they are adding a week onto everyones memberships to compensate this and we are allowed to go to another one of there gyms at no cost. I may have to look at this option if I want to make my running debut on New years eve or New years day.

Tentative goal has been set.

The decision has been made. I am planning to either run my first 5km race on the 31st at Shorncliff with The run inn which is a 5 km time trail or on new years day with the Brisbane road runners which is a 5 or 10km run. This gives me two weeks to prepare and get full range of movement and some decent strength back.I know it willl be slow and I am not going to push it, if there is any pain I will stop, if I have to walk I will, but Im hoping that it will be just a nice easy run with no set backs. I decided to post this decision as I feel if more people know it will make my commitment to this that much more solid.

The days activities were pretty good, I went to the pool and done another session of laps. The session entailed 100m warm up followed a 100m, 200m, 500m, 200m, 100m. A total of 1100m, I still used the peanut but kicked my legs a little, however the last 100m was done without the aid and it felt pretty good, so I will slowly reduce the useage of the peanut over the coming weeks. I have been very erratic with my swimming over the years and have found that I get to a stage where I dont improve in my times just the feeling after the swim. I think I need to go to a squad and get my stroke corrected by a coach, one of my goals next year is to compete in the Noosa triathlon and I would like to improve my swim dramatically by then, so this is something I need to do.

Tonight while watching the cricket I completed a 1/2 hour session on the bike trainer, this also felt good, not as much jelly legs as yesterday. I will continue to do this a daily basis to improve leg strength. Tomorrow will see me go to the pool again, my wife is not working so she will come and maybe do either deep water running or laps. Im not sure what I want to do, I will make that decision tomorrow. I will keep you posted, until tomorrow, happy training.

Oh, I almost forgot a few people have asked about my profile picture, this photo is one of a few that I had of myself, it is from this years Warwick pentath run. This is actually the second day, 1st run of the day, the Killarney ascent. I found this the hardest of the five, a 10k run with about 6k of continuous hill. It wasn't so much the hill it was the 30 km the day before that made it that much harder. Tesso knows this hill fairly well, being one of a few who have done this race on all three occassions, and I think the only female to achieve this.

New toy!

I have a Forerunner, pretty exciting. My wife gave it to me yesterday as an early Xmas present, so I can figure how to operate it before my running debut. I have been looking at these for some time and have weighed up the pro and cons before actually deciding I really wanted it. Today I was downloading the programs so I can transfer the data to the computer. I really like the maps/satellite images most of the other bloggers that I read have, so I have to get those programs at some stage.

Today I was pretty slack, apart from playing with my new toy I really didn't do much else. I was planning to go for a swim this afternoon, but when I walked outside a decent looking storm was building up, which actually hit about 20 minutes later and caused some major damage around the area. So Im glad I squashed that idea.

After the storm had passed I decided for the first time to actually go for a small walk around the neighbourhood, which is quite hilly. I should be getting out a bit more and walking on some undulating more testing type terrain. I also had the added incentive of checking out the storm damage and testing out the forerunner for the first time. I ended up covering about 1km in around 16 minutes, very slow but Im definently improving, those downhills are the killers. After I got back I hopped on the bike wind trainer for about ten minutes, pedalling much faster and easier than the previous days. My leg felt really jelly like after the ride so I walked around a bit more to get the feeling back.

All in all maybe the day wasn't so slack, I went for a walk, a ride and another walk, you could probably say that I just completed my first post injury duathlon.

Pool session # 1

Today I went to the pool, with my wife to do a few laps. It was great to actually do something again, to get the heart pumping and feel that latic/fatigue feeling running through my body. Im probably getting a bit carried away but I enjoyed it too say the least.

Anyway I was aiming to do 500m, I had my peanut which is a foam piece that fits between your legs to assist with my swimming. It was quite comfortable and after the first few laps I decided to increase the distance. I wasn't using my legs much and was pushing off the walls with my good leg which felt strange at first but I got used to it. I broke the session down into a pyramid type session where I swam 100m,200m,300m,200m,100m intervals. After completing that I ditched the peanut and used a kick board for another 100m. This was very slow going, there is no strength in my right leg and it was quite hard to stay on the correct side of the lane. If I kicked any harder with my good leg then I would have probably done doughnuts in the lane rather than getting to the other end.

As a cool down sort of activity I done some shallow water jogging which felt good, there was no pain which is always a good sign. I guess that this will be a common activty, having a daily visit to the pool, myself being partially disabled and my wife 4 1/2 month pregnant we make perfect invalid partners. Oh yeah almost forgot, seeing I have been a member of CR for a while I made an effort and bought a hat to identify myself as a CR. Eagerly awaiting it's arrival. Happy Training..

Xmas comes early!

The time had arrived to revisit the hospital and have a reveiw of my knee, it was also time to have my stitches removed. This I got to say was something I was looking forward to and I wasn't disappointed, the feeling of not having them in was very satisfying both physically and mentally. I knew from there that I could concentrate of getting my mobility back without the fear of tearing out my stitches. They must have had those suckers in tight because the tension released off my knee cap was amazing. The appointment consisted of seeing the rehabilitation specialist where he gave me some stretching and mobility exercises to complete everyday. He was also kind in giving more time off work to concentrate on my reovery which I wasn't going to argue about.

Anyway after returning home I was pretty keen to give my 'new knee' a crack and decided to hop onto the bike. The attempts on the weekend failed with my revolution, so the goal at that stage hadn't progressed. I still ended up not being able to complete the pedal stroke but did get a little further.

It wasn't until tonight when I had been doing all my exercise's that I decided to give it one last go before calling it quits for the night, that the milestone was achieved. I not only completed one but about 10 continuous, very slow revolutions, if I was actually out on the streets doing the same then I would probably topple over from lack of speed. The exciting part though is that the mobility is definently returning.

Tomorrow I am going to the pool, I think that I should wait a little longer before doing water running as a group class and examine my limitations individually first, so lap swimming will be my first step. I am aiming for 500m total distance today but this is unexplored territory and anything is possible.

To say the least I'm pretty chuffed so next time you hear from me the post will actually be exercise related and not so much moaning about the injury.

Soooo close!

Over the past few nights I have become quite adventurous and have been experimenting the limitations of my knee. I am quite surprised of the progress I have had since my last post. The range of movement when I saw the surgeon was noted down to be 0 to 10 degress, I can now get my leg now from straight to almost ninety degress when seated. There is currently very minimal pain but as I have said in previous posts the lack of activity over the last week and a half has caused the muscles/ligaments to shorten. The joint is very tight still beyond this point and I don't want to push it too much but it is exciting.

I decided to get my bike wind trainer out and attach my mountian bike to it. I raised the seat to the highest setting and attempted to get both feet on the pedals. I feel that if I can begin to pedal slowly at the lowest resistance it want be long before moblity will come and I can begin to concentrate regaining the strength. However even on the highest seat height the angle of my knee at the top of the pedal stroke is too great and I can't do a complete revolution YET!

This is now my new goal and I am hoping that I will complete this after a few more hours of stretching tonight. Tomorrow will be the day, if you listen carefully tomorrow morning you may even hear my cheers of joy as I complete the huge milestone of one pedal revolution. Will keep you posted.

Ground Hog week!

I entered the hospital yesterday as I did last week, the only difference is that I cant walk and feel worse than i did before the sugery. I didn't see the actual surgeon just his side kick a young bloke that assisted him. It makes me laugh when I think about this, the operation took all but 10 mins to perform, how much assisting can you do? On the other hand the work experience doctor probably done the whole operation and is the reason Im still crippled.

Anyway I hobbled into the consultation room and told him my problems and he gave me another week off work. Don't get me wrong I hate work thus love not being there, but when it comes down to it I would definately prefer to be at work and walk properly than the state im in now.

I have a little more movement in my knee and think that my limited range of movement is due to 50% stitches/swelling and 50% mental paranoia. The fact that I haven't used my leg for 8 days now means that it is very weak and stiff. The reason I'm thinking this now is that I walk around hobbling around so I dont feel any discomfort. I think that I should put myself through some pain and actually attempt to loosen the knee up, this should I hope speed my recovery up but it may also create horrible agony and keep me bed ridden even longer. Paranoia again surfacing!

Today I done a far amount of hobbling and the swelling which is usually at it's peak now is very tame which is a good sign. I 'm thinking of trying deep water running after the stitches come out next tuesday just to help with the rehab. I have never done this before but have read that it is good for cardio and resistance training.

At the moment this Blog is not living up to it's name, no exercise being done here, should be norm's exercise chronicles, but definately in a weeks time I will have a post about something endorphine related.

Frustration has really set in

It has been 6 days now since I had knee surgery, and I'm still moving about like a ninety year old. I see myself as relatively fit and thought that my recovery would be a little quicker than it has been. Im thinking that because I was required to leave all the padding and bandages on for 5 days has lead to my knee joint feeling so stiff that I cant even bend it without pain. There is still a little swelling not to mention a whole heap of fishing line hanging out of my leg which is probably adding to my dilemma. I see the doctor tomorrow for a review and at the moment I cant see how I can go back to work, I struggle to dress myself let alone carry out my normal duties. This is the first time I have had surgery and probably only the second time that I have hurt my knee to the extent where I cant walk. I cant explain it in words how frustrating it is not being able to walk let alone not be able to run.

Over the past 6 weeks or so I have been running with various run groups in Brisbane and have been getting my fitness back to a decent level. I always knew that I was going in for surgery but had this unrealistic expectation that I would be far more advanced in my recovery than the level Im at now. I can see that all my hard work over the past month or so is rapidly disappearing. Normally I wouldn't mind about not running for a little while and would do swimming but i can't even do that due to the stitches. Whilst Im having a cry I am going to mention how annoyed I am that I didn't schedule the surgery after this weekend for the Kurrawa run, I really wanted to compete in this and after reading the forums about the run on the coolrunning website it has made me think about the timing of the surgery even more.

Alright enough of the whinging, I will continue to try and get a little more range of movement over the next few days and hopefully at least get out of the house and go for a walk. Maybe next post will be a little more cheerful with some better news to write about.

My 1st Post....

This is something new, I have never kept a log or diary of anything especially for training. I have stumbled across blogging just by reading the forums on the cool running website and have looked at a few people blog pages. These have been quite interesting and can see how this can become addictive. You can actually see how a person is progressing with their training and fitness and can get alot of advice from people that have the same interests as yourself. I have decided to create one myself as from a personal perspective can see how this can help with your own training.

I have created this to actually see from a different view what I do each week, I'm usually a person who takes a day by day approach to training and feel that this can actually help with a structure to my training program. My main concern is to give me something to look back on, if I don't achieve the goals I have set, I hope it will give me the answers as to why? Anyway better go this is just an insight of my plans for this site and the first post necessary to continue to design this blog site.