On the mend

The weekend was spent fitting various new light fittings that my wife had purchased recently, both resulting me having to exercise my skill as an electrician as I had to re-route the ring main in the bathroom. Fitting the one in the conservatory posed a whole different problem, mounting a ceiling rose onto an aluminium extrusion. Al in all I spent most of the weekend going up and down stairs and ladders, by Sunday I was knackered and my maximus gluteus was aching something rotten, so much for having a rest. I celebrated the achievement of mounting two fancy lights without electrocuting myself in the usual way, the downing of some single malt.

Monday at the Harriers provided a unique opportunity to attend a talk about nutrition given by Tom of Team Wales, which proved informative, and slightly worrying. At no time did Tom mention Single Malts, puzzled by that, perhaps I just missed it. I do need to improve my diet, and cut down on the cream intake and eat more bananas.

The host of injuries were progressing nicely, another cold bath and breakfast with my foot in a bucket of cold water seemed to work well. Wednesday was a rest day in preparation for two physiotherapy sessions on Thursday and Friday, although I may need psychotherapy after that.

Thursday's session was in the hands of my own physio, Josie Adams. Unfortunately, Josie found the problems in my left leg without much trouble and set to work with her bionic steel thumbs. Phrases like "rusty piano wire" and "old corrugated tin roof" came to mind as she sorted out my hamstring, calf and associated muscles. She had me chewing on the pillow, thankfully the walls are sound proofed and I can return to the track in another week. I sought solace at home with some strong pain killers.

The physio at the hospital Friday was a much more subdued affair thankfully, not so much pain in the shoulder. However, and there is always a "however", the physiotherapist had me lying on my side trying to lift a 1Kg dumbbells, and it was too much. Half  a bag of sugar! Well time to go with artificial sweeteners then, as I have to do that three times a day.

There was only one way to end the week, it's name was Balvennie Doublewood aged 12 years, you can taste the sherry and cinnamon.

Life in the slow lane

So where does it go from here? A weekend of treatment did little to improve things, mood and hamstring suffered alike, especially when the wife dragged me on a shopping trip to the Mall in Bristol. Four hours to endure, something that tests even the most fit of middle distance runners, so you can imagine how I enjoyed it, by the end I had limped to a standstill. Surprisingly enough, I didn't buy anything either.

Things did improve as the week progressed, a cold bath and a hot soak supplemented by the opening of a bottle of Tesco Glen Foyle helped some. Certainly underlined the fact that cheap single malts aren't ever likely to become collectors items, but they do improve their flavour whilst relaxing in a hot bath. The other lesson to learn (again) is that no matter how much you might have washed your hands, it is better to have a pee before massaging damaged muscles with Deep Heat, because you won't get a lot of sleep afterwards.

Monday dawned, with me tired from the late night and so the week's training sessions were forgone and I spent the Tuesday and Thursday sessions observing our coaches and discovering that although I might know a lot about training, UK Athletics are convinced I know little about coaching, a lot of work to be done somehow. I stood around chatting and freezing my what-evers off wondering how I was going to fit all this in, work dictates that despite riding my Honda VFR on the Motorways of the West Country like Jorge Lorenzo of Moto GP fame, I can't get to the track in Newport before I leave Cheltenham. (Dr. Who to the rescue?)

I started planning my recuperation, initial running will have to be on grass, or to be more accurate - something that passes as marginally solidified mud, and not for another week. Physio was pre-booked for next week so it was up to  me and the buckets of cold water until then, when I hopefully get the go-ahead to start running again. Retirement is still being suggested and here's why, some of the major isssues are: Left leg only - Achilles Tendonitis, mysterious knee pain, pulled hamstring and hip pain: Add to that the right shoulder Brachial Plexus Neuropathy (no idea sorry but it hurts) and you see the problem. Anyway, I'm clearly too stupid to quit, so we'll soldier on  a bit longer as long as I can afford to have my physio keep gluing the wheels back on.

And to cap it all, the bike is now off the road, seem's to be injured or something, bloody Honda VTecs.

Its a real headache

I lost the whole weekend after falling prey to one of my infamous migraines, the wife recons I've been overdoing it so maybe I should back off, anyway I felt better by the Tuesday and with my daughter boasting she could do as many 2's  as me now it was time to rise to the challenge. Tuesday's session was therefore 8x200m in 33 with 3 minutes recovery. Thankfully the rain was elsewhere for once, but that left it freezing and I forget my gloves. The Doc decided to join in so we set about the task with enthusiasm, the first few went easy enough but the cold was starting to bite, as I lost feeling in my hands so I lost the feeling in my legs. I got to the end of the session having done 7 in 33 and the last one in 32, but that resulted in the legs giving way and a rather closer inspection of the 4x100m change over box. Amazingly I managed a warm down but had to spend a while stopping my head spinning before I was able to ride home, at least the lights were still on.

Sadly, Wednesday dawned with intense pain in my right Achilles, so treatment with ice and massage began, the weather lent a hand by making my hour and a half journey to work begin in sub zero figures. I felt better by the evening so chanced the next session, being a bit thick in that way.

Thursday was my opportunity to do a coaching session first so I was only going to do a 400 and 3x200m. The coaching session went well, with a couple of Newport's seniors showing me how to do 3x3x200 with 1 minute recoveries, completing them in 25-27 seconds whilst I ran the watch and shouted my own brand of encouragement. Think I can still remember doing similar some 30 years ago, though I'm not sure I was ever that good. So having completed my duties as coach, I set about the 400m which was defined as a time trial with a target of 65 seconds. All went well up to 200m, got there on 32 seconds, but rounding the bend, wheels flew off in all directions and pain started to gnaw away at my left Achilles, and I had to stop at around 320m (56 secs) as the fridge had arrived and now had an accompanying freezer. I hobbled away to seek ice, that's it for now then, back on the injured list so home and pain killers.

So 3 buckets of ice cold water later, plus gallons of Ibrupropen and deep heat, Saturday I dutifully attended day three of my Athletics Coaching Course, what could go wrong. Day three involved "Jumping for height" and "The pull throw", the latter being my worst event as any Decathlon will show, and the former is actually one of my favourites. So naturally carrying an injury I volunteered to jump, sometimes I wonder about my sanity. Well, I warmed up, I jumped, Achilles was OK-ish, then I pulled my hamstring ! Unbelievable! I'm not sure if I'm cut out to be a coach yet, but currently my  left leg is trying to convince me to retire. I shall contemplate such things with the appropriate volume of single malts, in this case a 1974 GlenLossie

The Perfect Storm

Flushed with the "success" from running a decent 600 on the Thursday, Saturday saw me revisiting the M4 via  the infamous 14 locks canal, this time my daughter came along for her first experience of Hills.  Being as this is Wales in November, the nights were drawing in and we were a bit late back from the cinema, not idea preparation for training and it was wet and windy. Just as we got ready to depart the BBC were good enough to issue an amber warning for the high winds and heavy rain due to hit the UK once again. True enough the run down was dreadful in the rapidly fading light, so much so we had to abandon the canal tow path due to flooding and use the access road to get halfway down before circumventing a newly acquired pond and completing the final drop to the M4.

14 Locks canal network

The weather had fooled us into thinking it would be just heavy rain, we headed back up and I discovered my friend the bear had traded his fridge for a bath, after 10m we were soaked through. We made it to the halfway pond/bridge (not sure which) and turned to run uphill into a 60mph gale laced with horizontal rain and a rapidly disappearing lane. Needless to say neither of us made the top, collapsing onto the fence in the now pitch black private lane. Effort was redoubled and my girl took the pace for the last half mile home through the monsoon, never was a front door so welcome, I made it as far as the stairs before the legs gave way whilst my poor daughter collapsed once more in the downstairs loo. Recuperation was clearly going to involve consumption of spirit from north of the border.

Sunday's session was another tough one so I drafted in my youngster again in an attempt to get a pacemaker rather than having one fitted. We were aiming to do 5x1Km road runs around our estate which just happens to be about 1000m according to Google Earth, in about 4 mins 30. Sadly the Welsh weather was being as uncooperative as ever, rain and gale force winds once more. So needless to say the first one was dreadfully slow, but nobody died despite the efforts of the local drivers and the attention the odd rabid dog. I barely made 5 minutes in all that, so the next had to be faster despite us only having a 5 minute gasp before the off again. The session was completed at the 4:45-ish pace from then on though, my daughter managed 4 including some entertaining yelps as all semblance of breathing left us in the latter stages. By now I was planning my assault on the single malt selection before I remembered we were going out to some dim-wits wedding party and I was driving. Driving! I can barely stand! Look dancing has never been my forte, but with even less physical coordination than normal, I was in trouble. We left early that's all I'm saying.

I can't say I'd really recovered by Tuesday but I still went training, the weather was making a special effort that day, above and beyond the usual wind and rain, so I was damp before arriving at the track. My new training partner, the Doc, and I worked our way through 6x300m reps, and initially set off on a 55 second schedule with 3 minutes recovery, somewhat ambitious on my part I have to say. Times dropped to 58 by the 4th one so we had to have a 5 minute break for snot removal and Quinine ingestion, along with excuse revision as to why things were not going to plan. The last 2 went without too much of a problem, though the Doc's hamstring pulled him up short on the last one and I had to abort the warm down as cramp broke out in the lower legs.

Thursday saw me pretending to be a coach as I did one of the preparation sessions for my UK Athletics Coaching award. This involved standing freezing my nu fingers off whilst trying to get some puzzled teenagers to learn the shot from someone who can't throw it either, many thanks to Rob Eales for avoiding a total disaster for me.

After a hour of confusion we called it a day and I foolishly embarked on 2x3x200m reps with 60 second recoveries - I call them turnabouts as that what you do when you cross the finish each time. First one was fine and in 32 secs to my surprise, during the second I noticed a furry creature standing along side a fridge - 35 seconds??? Needless to say bear and his fridge were not needed as I ran the 3rd one like a three legged dog going backwards through treacle. The second set was more even paced due to carrying the bear and his flaming fridge, I have to say my left calf was not enjoying life at this time, nor was my head and it took me so long to recover afterwards that the lights went off in the stadium to leave me to finish changing by the light of a mobile phone, OK I get the message.

Time for a rest then.

It was all getting a bit much for me, so time for a short break then. My eldest daughter is currently going through the whole UCAS University seeking thing at the moment, so we were off to Bournemouth for the weekend so I arranged that I would have a physio session on the Monday too.

The weekend in Bournemouth went well, nice Uni, decent hotel, great food what more could a man want (?). Sadly the bar only had two single malts, the Drumguish had clearly been open a while so I did my bit to help empty it, resulting in the pool and ping pong being somewhat hilarious afterwards. Probably put on a few pounds then, but I got plenty of exercise on the Sunday covering the many miles that women can cross touring a town centre, from Next to New Look and Boots for the hang over cure, We had a bit of excitement on the way home as somebody announced that Wales was about to shut for the night, a storm by the name of St. Jude was rolling in and the bridges were due to close, attempts to name it Allan after my friend Allan Leiper did little to lift our spirits as the heavens opened. Wales was closed after midnight but did re-open in time for work (damn).

Monday's physio was supposed to be just a rub down affair as I thought I was clear of injury. It's amazing how my physio, the brilliant Josie Adams, always finds a problem though. How such a small gentile woman can inflict so much pain is beyond me, she had me biting chunks out of the pillow to muffle my screams. But the suffering is worth while so I'm told, personally I am starting to believe this is a conspiracy, a story put about by psychopathic coaches who simply enjoy watching us inflict pain on ourselves.

I had two days off to recover from the physio, just in case. So Thursday's session should mean a fresh start, after all rest and treatment should set me up for the next onslaught shouldn't it? The menu read 2x400 & 2x600 which I have to say scared the pants off me after my last outing over 600m, so I decided to chicken out of the second one. So I did the two 400's and ran like I was carrying a bag of spuds, 80 seconds each! That's slower than when I did 4 of them. Not looking forward to the 600's then, but help was at hand.

Doc John Watson turned up and fancied a few 600's, so he took the lead which helped drag me through the first one. I did have to sit out the next one and watch the Doc show me how it's really done as he's 4-8 specialist. Anyway, I did the 2nd one, and how, Doc dragged me round a little quicker than before and let me out kick him as we had a bit of a burn up at the end. Boy did I pay for that, lost the feeling below the neck, pins and needles in my hands, but no sign of the fridge carrier! Mind you it took me 10 minutes to get back to the stadium from the 200m start.

I look forward to the weekends runs, which take me back to the canal.