the physio knows best (especially when he says what you want to hear)..

so i went to the physio last night - Paul this time, not Kevin. Paul took a good look and decided it wasn't so bad an injury after all (well i knew that, kinda..). He gave the tendon a good massage. [apparently, the Achilles is such a big tendon, it has a well-formed para-tendon around the outside, and it's the stickiness between that and the inside tendon, during periods of inactivity (sleeping in my case) that causes it to be stiff when you stand or get up. interesting stuff, huh.?] he then - to save time apparently - stuck a few acupuncture needles in my calf. [oddly, he asked if i'd had it before - and i had, for my shoulder, about 5years back - and whether i responded well - which i did, it was great. apparently, you can be a good responder to acupuncture or not.. take from that what you will.] then.. he went on to explain that the latest thinking is that Achilles problems may well stem from stiffness in the lower back - the fifth (if i remember rightly) vertebra. so he gave me a some massage and back-cracking for good measure.

i didn't know this before, but there some definite over-pronation with my right foot - and this could be the cause of the problem. i've got a new stretch to try out. usual calf stretch against the wall, but instead of the back foot being flat to the floor, before the stretch you raise and hold the inner arch up off the floor, thus rotating the knee outwards and stretching a slightly different way to normal. i tried it, and i could definitely feel a stronger pull on the outer-part of my calf. so we'll give that a go.

best of all: i can run again! i've had to pop up to the London Marathon Shop to get new trainers for better inner-arch support - more on those tomorrow - but i can start again. his advise was to start on a routine similar to a regular marathon schedule. so i guess i can go out and very lightly cover 2-3miles at the start and gradually build up. what a relief..

a video: me and the Mall..

so as a bit of a change, i thought i'd post a video of myself down on the Mall pondering about - guess what - running..



apologies for the background noise - the congestion charge is obviously not working quite so well as they thought.. also, apologies for my rambling style - this is actually the way i talk, not just because i've trained a camera on myself..

resolution and commitment..

i wrote a decent post about how i value running and how it compares to blogging in some way.. but it got lost in the ether during publishing, and i've not got time to replicate it now.. [grr]

it mostly aimed towards me working harder at myself and getting into better shape no matter what..

have to go and call that physio..

what can i say..

i started this blog to catalog the fun i would be having while running around London and in any of the races i entered. but when you get an injury you just can't shake, there ends up not being much you can say. how i wish i was running today. it's a beauty out there. nice and warm, a slight breeze.. boy, i'm frustrated!

up, down, square one..

after the excitement of visiting the physio last week and being pepped up with the work he did on my calf and Achilles - then advice on the right kind of exercise, i thought i was well back on the road to running again.

but that's simply .. not .. happened.

i religiously (alright, i missed a couple) followed the regimen of four to five sessions of 30-40 reps. [it was 'eccentric' stretching, by the way, not 'cyclic' as i'd written before.] but after a day of two, the load on my already tight (from the physio workout) calf was starting to tell. i was stiff all the time - not just after getting up in the morning, and i could tell that it was exacerbating the Achilles pain. so around about Tuesday, I decided to stop the exercises for a while and let my calf muscles recover fully. in the meantime, i've been icing it in the evening and taking a regular top-up of ibuprofen to hopefully work-out some of the inflammation. don't know what the effect of all this is just yet, but i have the feeling that it's getting - very slowly - better.

Zemanta just threw this item up as relevant to my post. looks kinda helpful - can't hurt.

i've decided that all this inactivity, while frustrating because i can't run (my, by far, far, far favourite form of exercise), is no good. no news there obviously. but i think it's starting to affect my sleep (currently quite restless) and definitely affecting my waistline. gonna work out a plan for upper-body strengthening and some sessions on the rowing machine - which shouldn't really stress the Achilles too much. Plus there's a good feature on core-strength exercises in runnersworld this month that i'll probably borrow from too. without a plan - or at least a list to tick off - i don't have the motivation to do this sort of workout - versus the pure enjoyment that motivates me to go running.

the cure: cyclic stretching..

went to the physio Wednesday night for a session of excruciatingly painful deep massage (calf has now overtaken hip for greatest ability to cause pain), some ultrasound (quite the opposite experience - i was lying on my front and even asked him 'what are you up to now?', when i heard the gel lid click open) and a pretty cool stretching exercise.

the basic problem is that i had tight calves before the marathon back in April (which the physio advised at the time would probably even help in the race - so we agreed to leave them tight), and have simply not done enough stretching to compensate for that stiffness and the added strain from the marathon and training since. so my Achilles has simply been taking the strain - and recently, with the increase in speed work - it's decided to protest. can't blame it really.

the massage was torture. he literally had me screaming for pain, like a baby.. i'm man enough to admit it. the stretches though are great - i knew immediately why they were so relevant.. the idea is the 're-teach' you set of calf muscles that they need to function over their full range - and not pull up short then over-stress the Achilles. so simple.

it's my right Achilles, so: find a step; step up on the edge (usual calf-stretch overhang) on you left foot right up onto the toes; join right foot to left and transfer weight to right; from tip-toes lower whole weight through the range of extension until the right foot is hung off the edge of the step - as far as it will go. this you repeat between 20 and 40 times in a row. and do that four or five times a day. so a pretty intense daily load. in this the muscles stretch out and work at the same time. they learn the range over which they'll be asked to function when you run again.

and the Achilles now? it's definitely getting better from the massage and the ultrasound. i should think within a week or 10 days, i'll be confident enough to get out for a light run or two. happy days!

London Marathon 2011 - Good For Age entry in..

i read up really early on the London Marathon Good For Age entries and got the necessary details (proof of age and proof of performance) off to them quickly. the form came back just a few days ago and i've just posted it off. [don't really know why i posted it, their office is no distance from here..]

i knew when i ran at Brighton that a good time would set me up for London next year, but i still can't quite believe it's all happened quite so simply. but that's it. now i know what i'll be doing for the first few months of 2011 - what i've done for the last two years. head down, hard slog. not that i wouldn't have been doing it for another marathon had i not got into London, but to know it's going to be the one i've always talked about getting into - the one i've applied for so many times - feels pretty good.

now got to make sure i'm as fit as i've ever been, as light as i've ever been (weight is key, i now know), and i'm super prepared. not only because i'd love to improve on the PB, but also because if you start dropping down the field in London and there's no way you are going to get back through the crowds. i saw that this year stood out at around mile 9 in Bermondsey. even at the speed i'd be aiming for there was enough people to make you worry you could keep your stride even. further back it got crowded very quickly - you'd be struggling to keep a rhythm.

what's the target? well, i've tentatively put 2:50. that'd be a 4min improvement on this year. i think it's doable. my 13mile split was slow in comparison to similar finishers at Brighton. i can work on the assumption that there's at least 2min gain if i'm better timed. i'll just have to work at the training even harder and squeeze the rest out somehow..

and then i waited..

so i'm waiting for the end of it now. laying the achilles out on ice every evening - ibuprofen gel in the morning and again when i get back - strapping it up (though bought a good bandage today) throughout the day.. and what. nothing yet. it's really difficult to tell, to be honest. i'm guessing it's edging back to normality, just slowly. god i could do with going for a run.

looking at whether there's any way i could go play football on Wednesday night. would be a good bit of exercise, and probably not so stressful on the achilles as running (right?). and then i could go down the pub with the lads after and watch the Spain-Germany game. not that that's influencing my decision on whether to risk it or anything..

i was interested to see that you can now buy all sorts of pain-relief gel. i only thought you could get ibuprofen gel. the one that caught my eye was voltarol - which i remember taking for a bad knee injury i had when i was at university and practising Tae Kwon Do. i remember it to be damn strong stuff, but maybe i've got that wrong. all i know is that ibuprofen is not only pain-relief, but anti-inflammatory too. maybe that's all i need to know. my plan is to get back to action and have as little to do with the drugs as possible.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/R-ibuprofen-A-2D-skeletal.png]

achilles tendinopathy..

no surprises really, but a quick check of the online literature - mainly here - makes it abundantly clear to me that achilles tendinonitis is what my problem is. now to find out what i do to fix it. and what it is that made it come on. i have my suspicions. number one would be that i've not been stretching my calves enough. i'm awful for that - and stretching as a whole. will get to that straight away. my other feeling is that i upped my fast-pace training quite quickly in order to get enough in before the 10k i was to do tomorrow. maybe i went at it a little too quickly and have suffered the consequences. whichever way round i look at it, i've made a problem for myself and i need to fix it quick.

i'm sure i can keep up the cold therapy and taping my ankle foot up to emulate a tendon strap, but i don't think i can go to the lengths of getting Poll to help me do the full-on achilles tendon taping. that seems a little extreme. i'll keep up with the calf stretching and see how things stand in a week or so. then i'll make the decision about whether i head back to BackonTrack, my excellent local clinic.

the sin of lethargy..

still strapped up round the ankle (it sort of helps, i think) and RICEing away to make this Achilles improve, but not much movement yet.. which i find strange, not simply because i'm incredibly impatient, but also because you'd think it'd be slightly better by now. there's no great pain walking around (certainly not with the strapping), and i can only feel the slightest of tightness when i climb stairs. it's worst when i get up in the morning - the stiffness then is pretty debilitating, but probably only for about 15 seconds. maybe i'm making a mountain out of a molehill.. whichever, whatever, i think i have to rest it 'til it's not doing this stuff.

Gebreselassie in his August runnersworld interview warned against lethargy. he said it's pretty much consistency and persistence that are going to make you the better runner. if you run one day, then are tired the next - still get out there.. you're not that tired. that's me all over. while i'm concerned about getting injured (see current status), i think i don't sit in the groove enough - don't commit to run early if i know it's not going to fit in the rest of the day - don't do those pull-ups when i ass the bar in our house, etc, etc.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/giansanti_foto/4457371833/]