June-bilee Shenanigans

Oh God.  I'm playing catch up again.  It's just been so busy, these past few days. Enough ado, let's get stuck in.

Monday 4th June.  Got up, walking the dog, 3.2 miles done.  Trousers got soaked in the long grass again, wished I'd worn my waterproof trousers.

On Monday afternoon it was time for the inaugural Godalming Jubilee 5k (presumably they will rename it next year!).  There was also a 10k option, but I decided to stick to the 5k, with a 20 minute walk into Godalming as my warm up.  It was my first race since my return from injury and I was planning to take it easy, get round the course and just enjoy the day.  

Excited at the start with Leila

That plan lasted till the gun went off, I got caught up in the excitement and legged it round at full pelt.  The course was great, a great mix of traffic-free road running combined with an utter bitch of a hill that came as a bit of a surprise!  Ended up getting round in 27:29, which is a pretty respectable time for me and I was 19th woman home.  That probably says more about the depth of the field than it does about my performance!  It was well staged, particularly for a first time out and apparently the 10k was great too, with another couple of killer hills thrown in for good measure.

After hanging around the finish area for a bit with Leila, I walked home to Farncombe and took Murdoch for a walk - another 2.5 miles in the bag.  When I got home, I nearly fell asleep on the sofa, but managed to drag myself back to Godalming for an evening of Jubilee festivities.  At this point I should probably mention that my poor sad PF heels were giving me serious cause for worry.  Not only had I gone out pretty hard, but it was mostly on road, whereas my training since injury has been mostly off-road to minimise impact.  As a result, I'm afraid I spent most of the evening in a bit of a grump, and wasn't drinking as I wanted to be able to drive home. Reh reh reh.

On Tuesday I awoke to a miracle.  My heels didn't hurt!  I think this may have been because I had done quite a bit of stretching and had massaged my legs quite a bit.  Huzzah!  This was excellent news and I joyfully set off to walk the dog.  Trousers got soaked in the long grass again, wished I'd worn my waterproof trousers.

At around lunchtime I headed down to Liphook where there was a Jubilee street party in my parents' road.  Had a nice time chatting to the neighbours, even though it was PISSING it down.  After a couple of hours of British stiff upper lip, we gave up and went inside.  Had a nice cup of tea to warm up, then headed home to walk the dog.  There is a reason why I rarely crack out the waterproof trousers, despite wet leg misery.  This is because they make me look like Wallace wearing the Wrong Trousers.  Judge for yourselves.  

The Wrong Trousers. More tea Gromit?

But I did get them out for the second dog walk of the day - it was peeing it down, after all.

Got up this morning and immediately knew that something was amiss.  Aaaw hell, I'm going to have to go back to work.  Hurumph.  At least I had a dog walk first to cheer me up.  Did the usual route with the dog walkers, left Murdoch there for the day and headed up to London.  Did a good day's work and then got my running kit on.  Our offices are near Tower Hill and I decided that it would be lovely to run back to Waterloo along the South Bank.  

Last time I ran over Tower Bridge I was in the middle of a marathon!

And very lovely it was too - had to do quite a bit of tourist dodging and had a very scary moment near the OXO tower when I realised that my rucksack had suddenly got lighter than it should have been.  Turned around to see a male runner coming towards me carrying my jacket, a shoe and my purse.  Apparently a girl had seen them fall out of my bag (which had come open) and he offered to run them up to me.  I was enormously grateful - I've no idea how I would have got back from London without my purse, which contained all of my money, cards and my train ticket.  Disaster very narrowly averted and faith in humanity restored!  The slight downside to my day is that I missed my train home and as I got home quite late, it was easier to leave Murdoch overnight rather than do a late pick up.  I miss that little guy.  The flat seems very empty without him!

So now you're up to date again, are you as exhausted reading this as I was writing it? :)

Goals

Image: pixtawan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was catching up on several weeks of the MarathonTalk podcast while I was on holiday and there was a great section about setting goals.  The context was putting together a five year plan, but for now, given that I'm still on the injury bench, I've decided to be a bit more short term about it and set some goals up to the end of this year.

So here we go:

Next three weeks

To increase my calf stretch to 10cm on each leg.  This is the shortest stretch measurement of normal range of movement.  There are a couple of reasons that this is my initial goal,  Firstly because my physio has told me that if we can't get rid of the pain (my heel still hurts) then I'll need to think about going for scans etc.  My next physio appointment is on 10th October and I want to do everything possible to get my calf muscles stretched out by then.  If it's still not good, then at least I'll know that I've made every effort and will let the NHS do its thing.  The other (secret) reason for achieving this goal is because I'm (secretly) convinced that my physio will tell me that I can run again if I do it.

In order to achieve this I need to do as much stretching as possible (hourly!) and also need to do my strengthening exercises (2 x 15 reps three times daily).  I also now have some Superfeet orthotics which should help support my arches and take the pressure off my heel.  Keep your fingers crossed everyone!

To end of 2011

My main goal is to hit my interim goal weight of 11st5lb.  This is the top end of a healthy BMI for my height.  Not sure that I agree with BMI as a measurement, but it'll do for now, as I've got to aim for something.  This means that I need to lose an average of 1.6lb per week between now and the end of the year.  I think that this is challenging, but possible.  There are a few obvious reasons for this goal.  Firstly because I've been banging on about it for ages.  But also because the less I weigh (within normal healthy limits of course!) the less impact will go through my heel whenever I run.  There's no doubt that the fact that I'm overweight has been a contributory factor in my injury, so I need to get this sorted out if I want to continue running long term.

In order to achieve this weight loss, I've put a little exercise plan together.  Essentially I'll be swimming Monday, Wednesday & Friday in the mornings (after dog walking and before work) and going to the gym those same evenings straight from work.  This fits in well with my dog care on those days.  Tuesday and Thursday I look after Murdoch, so they'll be rest days, with dog walking as some gentle exercise.  On Saturday the plan is to rest up and maybe have a little fun! Sunday is a longer gym session.

I will also be taking more care with my food intake - no use exercising if you're going to go home and stuff yourself full of crisps. Or wine. Or chocolate.  Or pie. Mmmmmmmm pie....... *ahem* sorry drifted off for a moment there.

My other (secret) goal is to have started running again by the end of the year. Don't care about distance or speed, just want to be able to run!  Especially as in a couple of weeks I'll know whether I got lucky in the London Marathon ballot.............

Comme Ci, Comme Ça

Went to physio again on Monday morning and despite a great deal of stretching throughout the past week, my calf extension has not increased one bit on either leg.  Curses! I swear the more I stretch them, the tighter they get.  Am hoping that it is a "it gets worse before it gets better" type scenario otherwise I'll be on crutches by the weekend*

I tentatively asked her whether it would be possible for me to do the Hever Castle triathlon at the end of September.  She said no.  I winced and asked her whether I might, possibly, be able to do the Great South Run (10 miles) at the end of October.  She said hell no.  Curses!  I'm now starting to wonder whether I'll be able to do the London Marathon next year (assuming that I even get a place).  I shall worry about that if I get lucky in the ballot.

She did however give me the go ahead to start using the cross trainer again, so on Monday lunchtime I headed to the gym and did 25 minutes on it, followed by some strengthening exercises that the physio gave me, followed by yet more stretching.  And yesterday morning I woke up with even tighter calf muscles than ever before. WHHHHYYYYYYY?!

I also woke up feeling very pissed off.  At 4am.  I can't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but whatever it was, I was quite incredibly cross about it.  Then I slept through my alarm and had to choose between washing my hair and walking the dog.  I dragged the somewhat ungrateful mutt around the block and got ready for work.  Got into the car and the leaky sunroof pissed rain water all over my head.  At that point felt glad that I had not chosen to do my hair.  Got to work and my drink bottle exploded all over my desk. WHY GOD? WHHHHHHHHYYYYY?!  To make matters even worse, I felt quite ropey all day yesterday - I've had a cold floating around me for ages and I can't quite seem to get rid of it.  Yesterday started with a sore throat and by the time I went home it had progressed to a sinus throbbing stinker of a head cold.  Yesterday was not a good day, cheered up only by rereading this old blog post which made me cry actual tears of laughter.

And yet today I feel pretty much back to normal again in terms of the cold, although throat is still a little scratchy.  Don't know what that's about.  I took Murdoch to the Dog House for our morning walk and as we walked to meet the rest of the pack, the unthinkable happened.  As we reached the edge of the field, Murdoch caught sight of a deer and he was off!  Full pelt!  I've never seen him chase something like that before, usually he sees a rabbit, goes after it a bit halfheartedly, loses sight of it and gives up.  Meh.  But this time he was hot on the trail and determined to get that deer.  Hot pursuit Flash!  Not entirely sure what he would have done with it, bemuzzled as he was, but after a few minutes of crashing through the woods, he emerged, looking quite pleased with himself.  Naughty boy had to go straight on the lead. That'll learn him**  

I meant to go straight to the swimming pool for a quick pre-work swim, but forgot my wallet and once I'd gone home to retrieve it, I didn't have enough time.  Might go after work instead.  In any event I went to the gym at lunchtime again but had even less time than usual to workout because of an illtimed callback from my pet insurance company.  Useless bastards couldn't process a claim properly if lives depended on it.  Christ, sometimes they probably do depend on it. Awful.  Anyway, I did 20 mins on the bike and then stretched out my calf muscles.  They feel much looser now; long may that continue.  

You may notice the renewed enthusiasm for exercise.  This is partly because I really needed to get on track and partly a panicked reaction to the fact that my holiday in Madeira is actually a week earlier than I had thought.  So it's now only 3 weeks away.  I am therefore involved in a frantic "Jeeeeeeeeeeezuz I've got to fit my giant ass into a bikini soon" desperate spiral of DOOM.  Well I may not be able to make myself a size ten in the time available, but I can sure as heck drop a few pounds between now and then so I don't frighten the other tourists ("Looooook mummy a beached whale" "Don't be unkind sweetie, that's just a giant fat lady").

*Possibly exaggerated for comic effect

** It won't

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 :)