“If you’re walking down the right path,
and you’re willing to keep walking,
eventually you’ll make progress”
Barrack Obama

Resting HR (average): 60

Injury status: Left calf 2/10

Neural stretching (knee to nose. averages in cm):

Baseline 28.5; Afterwards 25

Time is slowly ticking down to the Comrades Marathon 2010. While 43 weeks sounds like a long time, when it comes to base preparation, building the long runs, and then tapering, it doesn’t leave a lot of time, or room to catch things up! So this week it’s been about trying to get back into some sort of routine, get the training happening and “Just do it!”

I’ve mixed up some short runs with a couple of cycles early in the week, and then Friday I managed to do 15km in the middle of the day. It was beautiful running in the sun, mid 20 degree temperature. That’s what running is all about.

Friday night was extremely uncomfortable as the 15km felt like 40km! I wasn’t sore but my legs were extremely fatigued and they were very restless! Consequently I had a day off on Saturday.

Sunday I was inspired after a great Springbok victory, and ran strongly albeit for only 8km. However it was nice to run faster than 5 min km’s. Next week I’ll aim to get my mileage up a bit more and aim for 50km.

“When it comes to getting things done,
we need fewer architects and more bricklayers”
Colleen C Barrett

“If you greatly desire something,
have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it”
Brendan Francis

Resting HR (average): 60

Injury status: Both shins 4/10

Neural stretching (knee to nose. averages in cm):
Baseline 29; Afterwards 25

This week was even worse than the preceding week. I started off with a couple of runs, but then the Shins started to become sore. It’s frustrating, but I believe it’s also related to my neural tension, as opposed to muscle soreness.

The second half of the week was simply laziness, struggling to get up and questioning whether I want to or can run the Comrades marathon. I guess these are the struggles every Comrades marathon runner goes through, but it would nice to be able to train without the injuries compounding the difficulty.

As I’ve been struggling to wake up, I’ve decided to stop taking my sleeping tablets, as they may be one of my biggest hindrances. I’ve stopped going to the musculoskeletal specialist because I don’t think he had anything to offer, and was simply charging me a fortune to keep reviewing me without doing anything!

Once again I find “If it is to be, it’s up to me…”

“The starting point of alla chievement is desire”
Napoleon Hill

“The distance doesn’t matter,
it’s only the first step that is difficult”
Madame du Deffand

Resting HR (average): 60

Injury status: (R) Calf 1/10

Neural stretching (knee to nose. averages in cm):
Baseline 31; Afterwards 26

This week was simply not good enough! I started off with a couple of good runs doing 10km and then 12km on Wednesday.

However then I started to get slightly achey shins and calves, just from not being used to running, so I took a couple of days off.

Then I started to feel slightly dizzy, spaced out, which I think is from the medication/sleeping tablets I’ve been taking. A few days off won’t hurt, but I really need to start working on the base, as once 40 weeks to go comes around for Comrades I’ll really need to start building up, and there won’t be any second chances. Next week I’ve got to do 50km+ and start getting rid of the potbelly…

“Success has its price,
you can pay it if you will ”
Robert Laidlaw

“To believe in the heroic, makes heroes”
Disraeli

Resting HR (average): 58

Injury status: (R) Calf 2/10

Neural stretching (knee to nose. averages in cm):
Baseline 31; Afterwards 25

This week felt like starting at the beginning once again. Low mileage, low fitness, and a body that doesn’t seem to travel very quickly, smoothly or efficently, and where you wonder how you could ever contemplate running the Comrades of  90km!

It felt good to manage 5 runs, albeit only 8km at a time. It’s a good start and the key now is to get the fitness and mileage slowly up to what it was.

The resting heart rate is averaging closer to 60, so that needs to fall by about 10, and I haven’t wanted to weigh myself because I know I won’t like the result!

The right calf injury seems to be largely under control, even though it has felt slightly sore and vulnerable a couple of times. Out of all the physios, doctors and scans I have seen and had done, I believe the neural stretching is the thing that controls my symptoms, and they are directly proportional to my neural tightness. I’ve been working hard with my stretching, and that has resulted in my baseline measurements coming down 6cm this week.

I am also taking a tricyclic tablet in the evenings to try and help me sleep through the night and reduce central hypersensitivity (essentially a over responsive neural system), the downside being it’s hard to get up in the mornings to train! However this coming week I aim to increase the mileage slightly, (if I can do 50km I’d be happy), and also start doing my upper body and core stability work again…

“It is more valuabe to look where you are going
than to see where you have been “

“Anyone can start. Winners finish!”

Resting HR (average): 60

Injury status: (R) Calf 2/10

Neural stretching (knee to nose. averages in cm):
Baseline 37; Afterwards 32

This week saw upward progress and a small ray of sunshine in what has been a month of darkness! I had a small goal to run 8km 3 times during the week.

I managed to run 8km Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I set out to do. However Wednesdays’ run was uncomfortable and my right calf was felt like it was tightening up again. It was sore after my run also, and I feared that Friday’s run would cause it to blow up. However Friday’s run was reasonably comofortable.

In between on Tuesday and Thursday I did a bit of work on the exercycle.

I’ve tried to up the ante on my neural stretches, as it seems to have been the only thing my body responds to. I now have to try and manage them 3x a day. They are slowly getting better again, although they are always painful to do! It’s simply the degree of pain I can tolerate that varies!

On Saturday we went down to the Gold Coast for the Gold Coast marathon. Rheanna ran her first half-marathon in a time of 2:22! You can read about it here. I just watched all the runners, wishing I could be out there…oh well I have to keep working away at it…

“Be proud of how far you have come.
Have faith in how far you can go”

“All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them”
Walt Disney

JUNE 2009

Resting HR (average): 57
Resting HR range: 50-67

Average weekly mileage: 3km
Average training load: 4

Running time:km range: 5:16 – 5:22

Weight: 71.8kg
Fat %: 22.0%

“There is no failure except in no longer trying”
Elbert Hubbard

“This is my story.
I am the hero”
Yossi Ghinsberg

Resting HR (average): 59

Injury status: (L) low back 1/10, (R) Calf 3/10

This week saw more medical tests and a return to running. Monday I saw the doctor briefly and went back on Wednesday to have a stryker test for Compartment syndrome. This involved a base line measure of the pressure in the posterior (calf) and lateral compartments (outside) of my right leg. So he put quite a large needle in and boy did it hurt! After that I could barely walk due to the pain, but had to go for a run.

I ran about 18 minutes but no symptoms came on, and we remeasured the 2 spots. Having to go through those two needles again was not fun! It took at least 3 days to recover, and the areas around the puncture sites were very hard from the inflammation. The worst pain however was when I went o pay the bill and got told it was $630! I almost had a heart attack there and then! His standard appontments are $250, but this was more than i expected…

Thursday I went for an ultrasound scan on my entire lower legs to rule out any DVT or vascular causes for my pain. We only tested the venous system as the arterial system would not be as likely to cause my symptoms. As expected, nothing was found.

Friday I went back to the Doctor, and he thinks the medication is reducing my central sensitization and I am to slowly resume running. Central sensitization is essentially where the nervous system becomes hyper sensitive to stimuli such that the threshold where pain is felt will be a lot lower. It means that the nerves are not behaving as they are supposed to do, usually caused by some sort of trauma.

Friday morning, I managed 8km, and the goal for next week is to do 3x 8km runs.

“Failure is just one step closer to success”

“In life you need either inspiration or desperation”
Anthony Robbins

Resting HR (average): 57

Injury status: (L) low back 1/10, (R) Calf 7/10

Another week of no training, with not a lot more clarity of what my outlook is. I went to see the Musculoskeletal specialist on Wednesday, Dr Mark Craig. He said he was fairly confident he’d get me back to running, but we still aren’t sure what is causing my pain.

On Friday I went for an MRI scan of my lower back. I had a CT scan last year which is about 80-85% conclusive in showing any structural abnormality that may be causing my symptoms, whereas an MRI would give me 98% conclusivity. My CT last year showed some slight disc bulging around L4/L5/S1 but nothing significant. however it did show some atrophy of my multifidus muscle at those lower levels which is an important stability muscle. My MRI was normal, and no abnormalities detected, which is good.

My MRI in the frontal plane

My MRI transverse section through lumbar spine

I’ve done a little bit of cycling this week, but still havent done any running, as i’m advised not to, even though my leg isn’t painful at the moment. It’s getting very frustrating, and hopefully i’ll get some more answers next week.

“We are all in the gutter,
but some of us are looking at the stars”
Oscar Wilde

“We must accept finite disappointment,
but never lose infinite hope”
Martin Luther King Jr

Resting HR (average): 57

Injury status: (L) low back 1/10, (R) Calf 7/10

Another week with practically no training. Physically the calf is no better with 1km runs all that I could manage on Monday and Friday, before the pain set back in. Both occasions it caused the pain to flare up again for about 2 days. It’s extremely frustrating, as neural injuries simply don’t respond logically! What does one do. On Thursday I had to resort to going for a walk around the river like the middle aged ladies do!

Mentally it’s even more frustrating. The ability to sleep properly, and get up early to exercise is very difficult, almost as if some uncontrollable force makes it impossible to get out of bed. Consequently not much exercise has been happening other than the long, growing list of rehab exercises and neural stretching I have to do.

Next week I am going to see a musculoskeletal medicine specialist. I have experience of refering to 1 when I used to work as a physio in Wellington. They do things such as further investigations, trigger point injections and whatever else is necessary. I’m hoping I can get some light shed on my problem, and a solution that can stop this problem once and for all. After all Comrades 2010 is getting closer every day…

“Don’t lose hope.
When it gets darkest the stars come out”

“I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying” Michael Jordan

Resting HR (average): 54

Injury status: (L) low back 1/10, (R) Calf 7/10

This week can only be described as extreme frustration. With only 4 weeks before the Gold Coast marathon, it’s not a great time to be breaking down.
The Right calf has gone from bad to worse, and I can only run for about 1km before the pain stops me. I thought it was a calf strain, but I have been to medical professionals and had an ultrasound scan which could not pick up a tear anywhere. The most likely scenario is neural tension, similiar to the injury that kept me out of Comrades 2008. It’s a complex problem that doesn’t like to go away easily.

I haven’t been doing much neural stretching in May, as the first half of the month I was going so well, after a great start to the year. I guess it shows that with my physiology, I have to be doing neural stretches every day without fail. My test to see how far my nose is from my knees in the long sitting position (trying to touch ones toes) is about 38cm at the moment and it was down to about 25cm at one stage.

The week went extrememly badly in terms of being able to train, keeping up the mental strength and again getting some decent sleep. Hopefully this problem can be rectified in the coming week, otherwise it looks like I won’t be able to run the Gold Coast marathon, and beyond…

“7 days without running makes one weak!”