Wednesday 27 July 2011

I feel like such a heel

Goodness me, where does the time go, doesn't it fly when you're having fun etc etc.  Two weeks have positively zipped by and yesterday was the big day - the fortnightly weigh in.  So how did I do?  Well I am now down to 12st11lb which means I've lost just over 4lb in the past four weeks. Overall I'm happy with this - 1lb a week is fairly steady measured weight loss, but really I wanted a bit more of a kick start to the process.  I don't see any reason why I can't lose 1.5 - 2lb per week, at least at first while I still have quite a bit to lose.

The past week has been a bit difficult in terms of exercise.  As I mentioned in last Monday's post, I had got a touch of plantar fasciitis following the sprint training / long(ish) run combo I did at the weekend.  This meant that I did not exercise at all last week, until Saturday when all felt ok again and I decided to head to the track.  We were doing 2 sets of 8 x 200m - to be run at around the mile pace that we're aiming for.  My aim was 60secs, but I was comfortably and consistently coming in at 50 - 52secs, so I was feeling really pleased with my performance and despite a bit of heaviness on my chest (more on that later), I was feeling strong for the entire first set.  The heel was niggling a little, but nothing that concerned me until I started the second set and had to give up after 3 reps.  The heel was really complaining now and given that I was down to run in a league 10k race the following morning, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and called it a day.

Woke up on Sunday morning.  Got out of bed.  Fell back onto bed yelping.  OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUCCCCCHH! Serious amounts of pain when I put any weight on my left foot.  Much hissing, swearing and hopping about the flat later, I realise that I'm out of the 10k for that morning.  Boo.  I then spent the rest of the day sunbathing *ahem* keeping the weight off my foot and rolling it on a frozen water bottle as recommended by my good friend Andy.  Thanks mate, it really helped and by the end of the day, the foot was comfortable enough to take Murdoch for a decent walk.  

On Monday I already had an appointment scheduled at the doctors' surgery, so mentioned my heel.  The doc looked at me as though I was an idiot for having run on it (has she never met a runner before? Surely we're FAMED for running when we probably shouldn't?!) and told me to ice, stretch and most importantly REST the foot.  So no weight bearing exercise for me for the next week or so and longer term I'm looking at some physio - I found out that I'm covered for it under my Dad's private health insurance, which means no NHS wait list for me - phew!

So I now need to think about how I'm going to exercise if I can't run.  Usually my best time for exercising is a fairly intense 30min session in the gym at lunchtime.  I usually go and pound out some swift intervals on tbe treadmill or sometimes just a plain old simple run.  So if anyone has some suggestions on half hour gym sessions that I can do which do not involve any weight bearing stuff, I'd love to hear them.  I guess I could do some interval stuff on the bike / cross trainer?  And it's probably time that I started doing some core work too.  So I'm trying to look at this as a positive thing that's going to expand my exercise repertoire, rather than something that is imposing limits on me.

On Monday evening I went to the pool and did 70 laps, felt pretty good, but then yesterday morning I woke up feeling pretty terrible.  Everytime I stood up, I got really dizzy and felt all congested and tired and horrible - really difficult to breathe,  Spent most of the day lying in bed doing intervals of feeling sorry for myself mixed with some intensive rest periods (Zzzzzzz).  

I had a really weird dream late morning.  I dreamed that Murdoch was not a real dog, but a sad tattered soft toy that I dragged around everywhere with me.  Everyone humoured me because I was a mad person and to me he was a real dog.  So I'd look down and see my little waggy tailed piglet, but to everyone else he was just a soft toy.  I woke up in a bit of a panic and had to run (oops stop slow down dizzyhead) and check out the situation.  Murdoch is definitely real (and didn't appreciate being woken up so I could check). Or, if he's not real, then I'm still crazy and I'd appreciate it if you could leave me to it :)

2 comments:

  1. Hi - some stretching and physio will sort your PF out - but better to do now before it becomes chronic.
    The whole reality vs imagination thing opens up a Matrix-like Pandora's box of Sophie's World type discussions (too many similes there I think). Maybe Murdoch has dreams about a cuddly toy owner and wakes up all concerned? Maybe there are cuddly toy owner/dog combo's that dream of being real? Maybe they ARE real?

    . This is why I like spreadsheets where I can get a proper answer.

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  2. Firstly well done on the steady weight loss. Two, cycling, swimming and core work tick all the boxes for keeping your fitness levels up. Hope your PF gets better soon - some physio is defo required I think. If I sleep during the day I always have wacky dreams - must be something to do with the time of day or somesuch?

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