Down and Out... For how long????

WEEK - 30K
MARCH - 167.5K
YTD - 365.5K


Well this week has been one of a kind, I haven't posted at all since last Sunday so I will start from the beginning of the week.

Monday - Arrived at work, to find out that the person that was supposed to run the PT session had forgotten to tell someone that he was on a course for 2 days. When this happens and it does frequently we usually go for a run. This is exactly what happened, we done a total of 8k.

Tuesday - This was supposed to be my rest day. At work our Wksp starts at the normal time where as the rest of the workplace start at 1pm and work an afternoon shift. This means that there is hardly anyone around so the plan for PT is usually up to yourself. However the Boss decided to organise a session, years ago the fitness test for the defence force used to be a little different to what we do now. The run used to be 5k instead of 2.4k, there were chin ups instead of push ups and 2 minutes of situps, similar but it is to a cadence now, a total of 3 minutes if you do them all. So you can guess what he had install for us, we done the old fitness test minus the situps, everyone can pass situps especially when your feet are held.

I was a bit annoyed as I had my other runners on which are not great for running and I had no opportunity to change them. I decided I would run fairly conservative, you have 25 mins to pass anyway. I managed 13 chin ups which I was quite happy with considering I dont train for them. We arrived at the start of the run and done a few stretches, then on the line and off we went, nothing really major went on besides the fact that we started in the wrong position. After the turn around of the first lap I let the boss know about the start position and that we would need to stop 100m before the finish line. I crossed the line in 19.30, not really blowing hard but my legs didn't like the shoes much.

Tuesday pm - Now that this wasn't my rest day I decided to make it my speed session day instead of thursday which would be my rest day. I hadn't been there before and the grounds were a little rough. The legs were feeling a bit achy during the warmup which concerned me a bit. My shins have been weird over the last 2 months, they ache sometimes so I have been just icing and sometimes rubbing some Voltaren to settle them done. If they are pretty sore a few days rest usually fixes them.

The strides were the last part of the warmup, and the legs were getting worse I knew something was up and should have stopped, instead I eased up. Phil arrived and the bulk of the session started abit of chatting not doing much settled the legs down. We done some short sprints and some lunge type movements. I was so glad it was dark and nobody could see us do these it looked weird and felt ridiculous :) A quick lap as a recovery and we were told we were doing three laps of the oval, I started off with Steve Lucas and right from the start I was feeling uncomfortable, not breathing but the legs hurting not allowing me to stride out. I dont have a problem with short 1k intervals and the pace were running was not fast at all. I was struggling and by the end couldn't hang on crossing the line 10m behind.

As soon as I stopped the pain hit, I could hardly bear weight on my lower legs, they were aching BAD! I let Phil know that I was stopping the session and went home soon after. They continued to ache for the remainder of the night even after icing. I went to the Doctor the next day and let him know what happened, I now have two weeks complete rest from any impact activities and have a bone scan booked for next week, to rule out stress fractures. He was also saying something about Compartment Syndrome which can cause things like this. I also had to go to the podiatrist and he plastered my feet up for orthotics which arrive in a week or so.

Friday - This was the day I have been dreading, an appointment was made to see the Physio, the Doc and Pod wrote that I needed a deep tissue massage to loosen me up. After regurgitating what happened again, she knew exactly the type of pain that I had experienced as she had the same issue a few years back. She found that no matter what she did, reduced work load, ran on softer surfaces nothing worked as well as massage. So that is what I got, to see if it is going to work for me she only done one leg and so I wasn't too sore over the weekend and so I could compare the feeling between legs and let her know next week. Im so glad that only one was done it hurt bad, and being a wimp I told her to do the right leg the one that is nowhere near as painful to touch. I have another appointment on Wednesday so I can see the other leg is going to get done. I also have my own massage and icing program I am required to do to help things along.

I am annoyed that this has happened, but when it comes down to it, it is my fault. Well partly, I should have stopped when they began to ache a few weeks ago and got them checked out. This would have found that I have issues with the biomechanics of my legs which would have been addressed alot earlier.

I have now ressessed my goals for the year, I am now out of the ADF 1/2 Marathon Champs on the 30 April. If the bone scan finds stress fractures I will be out for around 6-8 weeks if they are just servere Shin Splints then I would like to do Warwick Mid May still depending on when Im allowed to start training again. Not that I have mentioned it but I had decided to do GCM, but now it is out aswell, I would still like to do the 1/2 however, beyond this I dont know the only run I would like to do is Kurrawa, maybe this could be Marathon for the year.