More Rehab

Well things have changed a whole bunch in the last week since my sports massage. It seems that the physio didn't identify nor treat a secondary problem on my leg. WTF!!

I had felt both pain in my shin and in the back of the calf previously which had been tackled however what had been masked was pain in my peroneal tendons on the side of my leg. This manifested itself by Monday this week and I could tell that there was some resistance in my calf from stretching out the ankle as it was god awful tight. With this I decided it best to try and get this looked at again as I know from leaving it during the first week these things don't resolve themselves.

I managed to book in for a last minute appointment on Tuesday with a physio local to me who I have used before. After talking with him for 10 minutes about the last 2 weeks he performed some tests on my legs he could tell that this issue had been overlooked. He said that the other problems had pretty much been resolved in my shin and back of my calf so that was good news .

Still he explained that it might still be at least 1-2 weeks before I could go for a run due to this peroneal muscle issue. In rushing back from a calf injury I could relapse quite quickly due to the amount of stress the calves go through during running.

I didn't expect to react the way I did but I calmly accepted that this, how could I not my leg was screwed still.. He advised also to not even deliberately stretch the leg out over the next week and to just let it heal. After a couple days of mild soreness my leg feels 100% improved.

I have a follow appointment booked in for Tuesday next week where some more work will be done on the leg and then a plan put in place to get back to running. I fully expect to be doing this in November. I hope for the sake of my physio and family it's sooner rather than later as I have been a little grumpy :-)


Ouch!

It's been a long week and even longer one without the ability to run at all.

After the disappointment of not racing at Chelmsford I have pretty much focused 100% on getting the calf back to 100% normal. The obvious answer is that I should book a sports massage but where ever I tried locally the answer was about 7 days wait. The pain in my calf was bad enough that I couldn't wait that long.

Fortunately a work friend told me about a walk in centre around the corner to our building so I walked into the place yesterday morning and straight away I got lucky with an immediate appointment at lunchtime for 60 minutes.  After arriving back at lunchtime I explained to the physio what was wrong, no problem he said!

Well what can I say the pain emanating from my leg was bordering on excruciating..I clenched my teeth more than once and I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. Doesn't sound good right then again I don't think you can enjoy the pain.

After 60 minutes of smashing my legs to pieces I felt light, relaxed. After sitting up the physio advised me to ice and soak the leg for the next day or so and then after 3-5 days do a short very easy run to see how it feels. As soon as put my foot on the floor I could immediately tell my leg was in much much better shape. Hallejuah!!

I often think about booking in a sports massage regularly but these are always a luxury however with my "Beast" roller I am sure that I won't repeat the same mistakes twice. I am looking forward to just plodding along my local park trails and then start building up for next year.

It's so true you don't know what your missing until you lose it. OK OK it's only been nearly 2 weeks of no running so I should stop being dramatic!

Everything was going so well

Well, the last time I wrote anything about my training was some time ago. Since then it's been a roller coaster of a summer with building works at my house, work being busy  and somehow squeezing in a fair amount of training.

Thing's hadn't started so well back in the early summer but during August and September things started to flow really well. The past few weeks I have been averaging solid mileage for me and consistently hitting good speed sessions whilst being able to recover day to day from the increasing work load.

I certainly have felt that I was on the verge of another breakthrough with my upcoming marathon. A new PB was something that looked more and more achievable with every week that passed. On Saturday last week I had scheduled a 5km or 10km time trial. I chose to do the 5km, During the previous week I had picked up a niggle that I monitored coming off some fast downhill runs but it didn't turn into anything major.

The target was to hit around 20:10-20:30 at 95% effort. This is a good workout to do prior to the marathon to see whether I am lacking in speed or stamina. Maybe with 7 days to go this is more like a tune up.

The top of this range was about 45 seconds faster than my 5km PB but then again I don't really race over this distance. I warmed up with a good 3 miles before getting into the 5km. The sudden change in pace to around 6:30 was a little uncomfortable and I almost wanted to jack it in after the first mile.

Well it was definitely a good workout and I absolutely ran it the way I wanted to. The splits for the 5km were 6:29, 6:33, 6:32 and 41 seconds for the last bit. I ended up with 20:15 for the 5km. I slowed down to catch my breath and I really was puffing hard but I wasn't completely spent so that was good. It was during the cool down phase I noticed the top of my calf was a little sore.

I hadn't noticed it at all during this run and it didn't hurt as such yet. When I got home I got cleaned up and had a good lunch. It was then the pain hit me. My calf was immediately sore. What the hell had I done!! Then I remembered that I had a niggle in my calf during the week, it was entirely possible that this had manifested into something a little more serious. I soaked my calf and put on compression socks for the day.

The next day the legs didn't feel tired but the right calf felt painful. I could feel a nice lump of pain in the back of my calf about 2-3 inches down from the knee. Over the past 4-5 days I have self-massaged, had cold soaks and foam rolling. The problem still persists and it's firmly in my shin now.

This is making walking quite difficult at the moment and yet any physio I have spoken to says that I will need to wait at least a week to be seen! That is ridiculous and it's making me feel somewhat pissed off.

This weekend it is the Chelmsford marathon and I have had to withdraw due to the reasons above. I feel pretty gutted to have picked up a niggle that turned into a full blown problem the week before it. Alas there is nothing I can do except get myself sorted out as quickly as possible before looking at slowly coming back.

That means of course I need to get to see the physio. Time to start dialling buttons and not give up without an appointment booked ASAP.