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