Going cold turkey!

‘No running for 6 weeks’. The words reverberated mockingly against the 4 walls of the stark white tiny treatment room I was sat in at Ocean Physio. Ok, a touch melodramatic, but if you knew me and my complex relationship of dependency with running, you’d know that it is vastly akin to that which a desperate addict shares with his drugs. Running is my drug and I need my regular fix, so hearing that I would have to go cold turkey for 6 weeks is not what I wanted (or, indeed, expected) to hear. I had hoped that I was going there to be fitted with a pair of orthotics and so, whilst not expecting them to be a miracle panacea of a cure straightaway, I thought I would at least be able to resume very light training as I slowly get accustomed to them. Nope. No running. At all. For six weeks. Why does it feel like a life sentence?

Yes, I’ll admit, I do have a tendency towards the histrionics sometimes, and yes, I know the situation could be far far worse. In reality, I am lucky that I have never had to stop running completely for this long before. Maybe if I had, if I had rested previous injuries properly instead of trying to run through them, then I wouldn’t be in this situation now. Maybe if I had succumbed to the lure of the eerie and artificial underworld of the orthotic earlier then I would be running pain free and putting together some consistent training right now. Maybe maybe maybe. But I am not and I could not have timed it any worse to be ‘signed off’ running for 6 weeks: the start of the summer holidays. The 6 week period of the year in which I have all the time in the world to run in the sun, which I love. No, for me it’s now six weeks of being stuck inside a gym, working my merry way through yet another sodding strength and conditioning programme. Terrific.

Ok. That’s enough sulking and navel-gazing. Time to focus on the positives. I think (hope!) I finally have an accurate diagnosis of what’s been causing all the issues with my lower left leg. I have been prescribed a pair of orthotics which should help. I have been given a detailed strengthening and stretching programme to improve the flexibility of my calves and ankles. If I commit to this, and it is a big commitment (the stretching programme takes 15 minutes to complete and must be done five times every day for the next 6 weeks), then I will hopefully see lasting results and prevent a recurrence of any lower limb injury. If it doesn’t work, if I do all this and then, 6 months down the line I get injured again, I think I may have to target golf as my next hope for making Rio 2016! My 24 strokes over par round of my local pitch and putt course the other night showed great promise and lifted this from being a nebulous notion to a plausible plan. ;-)

Whilst I hate the gym, I am at least lucky in the sense that I have the free use of a very impressive one at the school in which I work. For 2 hours before school and 2 hours after, the gym is exclusively available for staff to use but, usually, I am the only person who takes this up. Three of us in there at once is the most crowded I have seen it yet! It’s a fabulous facility, full of all the cardio and resistance equipment I need, and, unlike at my own gym, for which I pay £30 a month, I do not need to limit myself to just 15 minutes on the c.v. equipment, which is barely a warm up for me! So I shall throw myself, with a fervour particular to fools, into my prescribed regime, and much good may it do me!

          The fabulous gym at my work that I can train in before and after school each day. 

I would like to thank Teignmouth Community School for allowing me to use this amazing facility free of charge. 

Learning to love the cross-trainer!

CV, resistance and weight equipment galore and I am the only person in there!

The biggest downer is that I have a coveted place in one of my favourite all-time events – the Snowdon International Mountain Race – on July 19^th, at which I will be now registering yet another DNS. Highly annoying as this one cost £32 to enter and I have also had to take a few days unpaid leave from work to get up there in time for it. Ho hum, can’t be helped. I will have a terrific time in Llanberis anyway, catching up with all my old North Walian friends and doing lots of mountain walking instead…. at least I am allowed to walk I suppose. I guess I had better get used to life in the not-so-fast lane for a while!