Everything is falling into place and I am feeling better in myself than I can remember. I have a job I thoroughly enjoy, so much so that I actually look forward to going to work on a Monday morning! I do also love my weekends but I like to get stuck into my week day routines. And my training is at a level where my fitness is exactly where I wanted it to be before I progressed to the next stage of introducing some quality swim and run sessions.
The slight snag is that my left hip is giving me a few problems that I need to address before I can safely say I am injury free. It started just over a week ago but, with many of the other niggles I’ve been getting as I have progressed my strength and alignment training, I continued with a reduced mileage run plan to see if it settled. It didn’t, and on Sunday I had to admit defeat and cut a run short.
The positive part, though, was that Sunday was the second day in a row of running – possibly for the first time in over a year – and I had no reaction whatsoever in regards to the original injury. I am referring to the shin splints here, although it is difficult to know what the original actually was.
Over my years of doing sports massage I saw many cases of the ‘unwinding process’. This is where the troublesome area is treated and a similar symptom presents elsewhere. Whilst I am a firm advocate of addressing the cause of the problem (in my case, poor alignment and untreated mental health issues), if the body spends many a year compensating for the cause, you end up with a whole heap of issues building up that need addressing in some way.
This recent hip issue is exactly the same as I had a couple of years ago but on the opposite side. I don’t recall having hip issues prior to 2015 but I do remember suffering with ‘runners knee’ on the left side in 2004. At the time I saw a massage therapist who kindly massages my knee, but as I now know, this would have done absolutely nothing as the problem would have stemmed from my hip area….the one I am now having problems with.
I have taken this week off running and reintroduced the hip exercises I was given two years ago. I shouldn’t necessarily have continued with them all this time, but I can definitely feel the areas working again! Instead of running I am using the turbo to do similar type sessions, e.g. today should have been a tempo session: three minutes of speedier running within a 30 minute run, so I did 30 minutes on the bike and put the gears up for three minute intervals.
I was amazed at how my fitness has improved. My last session on the bike was November last year, but I was struggling for fitness from September/October time. Below are screenshots of a 30 minute turbo at the beginning of October (the top two) and today. My HR was pretty similar, but today I covered more than two extra miles as part of an interval session versus a flat ride five months ago.
The downside is that I may have to reconsider this not cycling malarkey as I actually quite enjoyed that session.
Anyway, back to running. I am hopeful that a week off with some cycling and specific hip exercises will see me running solidly again….I feel I am so close to being back to my old self and am quite looking forward to what the summer may bring. I am entered into Eastleigh 10k on 19th March, which actually would have been my Grandad’s 99th birthday….it would be wonderful to be able to run and enjoy that for him.
I have several ‘goals’ for that day depending on how the next 10 days go. I am not going to detail them all but they range from running a comfortable PB (this is more achievable than it sounds given I have only ever done one hilly 10k race in my life in 2012 – 56:something – and Eastleigh is flat) to getting to the start line. Not necessarily completely injury free, just to the start line. I have entered this race several times and never actually run it so I have a reasonable chance at achieving at least one goal if this week goes well!
I’ll keep you posted!
Yay glad to hear things are going well. Hope the hip niggle disappears tho!