I’ve been hammering my quad with the foam roller. It’s sore of course. It was fine in JKD and Muay Thai so today I had an opportunity to get out for a daylight run. I could hardly walk. Disappointed and trying to stay positive I went home and hit the bike indoors for a hour. 

Leg was fine and it’s much easier to keep my heart rate in an easy aerobic zone. Post ride my leg was fine, if not better!? Hopefully the cycling stretches it out. Hopefully it continues to improve so I can actually run at a Saucony trail shoes training I’m attending on Wednesday and Thursday in the Peak District. These things rarely come up and I’m psyched to run somewhere new with other people! Fingers crossed. 

Physio update.

So I went to the physical therapist, my bosses’ wife who helped me before Western States with my foot. I had the kids along as well which I was nervous about. Anyway, it was the only option. Booked train tickets to avoid flood traffic and it’s fun for the kids. After booking I look at the schedule and the train has been cancelled. Ugh. So we drive.

Once in town it starts to rain but we deal with it and head toward the physio. We sit down and the kids are being pretty good. Mindy comes out and brings us into her office. She’s start asking a bunch of questions as I dump out crayons and paper for the kids. Then she starts the physical exam with a bunch of mobility checks. Then some digging with her fingers she finds done knots deep in my quad. I guess this is a good thing! No bone issues! She talks a bit more then asks if I’ve ever had acupuncture. Nope! Are you scared of needles? Nope! And a pile more of questions pertaining to fear of needles and blood. Nope! Soon she’s sticking 70mm needles into my leg! After three go in she asks to describe the feeling. It feels like there’s a ballon expanding in my leg. Super weird. Then she sticks a fourth “upstream” of the others. She slowly wiggles them in deeper as the sensation diminishes. It soon returns. It goes away again and she pulls them out. The pain is significantly less! 

I’m told to grind on my quads with a roller to release the tension and to also stretch. I can run on it as long as the pain isn’t getting worse. If need be I should get in touch for another round of acupuncture if needed.

The kids’ drawings of me with four needles in my leg.

She said it’s likely I could still race Stratford and West Highland Way. Time to go to work on my quad. 

Hanging by a thread

Tomorrow. (Actually today but forgot to post this, let’s pretend this is yesterday!) Physio appointment at noon. I just want to know what to do. I’m not like most people who half heartedly do what’s  prescribed. My head thinks it’s a femoral stress fracture, let’s hope I’m wrong, because that means nothing weight bearing for 6 plus weeks. Fuck Dr. Google. 

The area is having the worst flooding since 2007 and it’s great photography right now. Running is a great transportation method to get through road closures and I’m shut down. Not that I’d be out during the daylight  anyway but I guess there’s never a good time to have a seemingly terminal injury. 

Tough week. Kids are off school (so I’m off work), wife is working from home so noise and house mess will need to be kept at a minimum, and the weather sucks. Normally I’m down for whatever but walking hurts so I’m hesitant to do anything. It’s a mental struggle, especially with the kids rotting their fucking brains out on iPads all day. 

Answers tomorrow will hopefully give me some sort of direction to take. 

Well I’m officially injured and not running. It’s painful to walk even.  I’m booked in to see a physical therapist next week. No idea what it is but it definitely has me worried. I also have no idea where it came from. Usually I can look back at my training and pin point exactly what I did to stress my body too much. I’m attempting to keep sane filling time with martial arts which has been great, but it still isn’t the same. I am worried about my mental state. My bike is set up and ready to roll but I’ve yet to commit. Maybe tomorrow morning. Trying to stay positive. 

Nope. Not a hernia.

Well a quick trip to the doctor confirmed it’s not a hernia. I guess that’s a relief but I still don’t know what it is. I’m going to treat it as a muscle strain; ice ibuprofen, rest, etc, and see what happens. And of course try not to go crazy. It may be time to get the bike out and set up in the furniture and toy filled garage. 

Haven’t been messing around on Strava much. I figure most of my runs are boring slow run commutes and with no photos to share who cares, so I keep them hidden. Was back up to 60 mile weeks until this quad thing hit. I’d guess I’d bounce back fairly quick again once this heals up. It’s frustrating seeing consistency go away however. Consistency is key in running or exercise in general if you want to improve. 

Motivation for JKD is returning. We had a black belt class last weekend and received the curriculum for the next phase test. The new curriculum is really fun, and there’s an obvious expectation that comes with the rest of the previous stuff. I need to be practicing more in order to perform at this level. The new curriculum filled a gap that I needed. That gap was structure, as what to focus on at home. I struggle with “what should I be doing?”  

The warm up for the next test (which is at an unknown date as of now) has 50 burpees on it, as well as the other usual exercises 60 each x push ups, sit ups, jump jacks. 50 burpees is hard and intimidating even for me! So I need to work on burpees. We of course have quite a bit of new curriculum to learn, and there’s a high expectation of knowing the old curriculum as well. 

So, physical fitness, shadow boxing (empty hand, stick, stick and knife), new curriculum, old curriculum.  There’s some structure for me! 

Another hernia? A giant race looms.

Things were going really well until last week. I developed an odd pain in my upper quad. I did the usual to get rid of it, rested, foam rolled, stretched, iced, ibuprofen. It’s still there. However after my strength workout yesterday I noticed slight pressure in my groin. 

Above the scar from a previous hernia surgery I noticed a bump when I exhale. Maybe I’m just worried about it and never noticed it, but it appears I may have another hernia. I guess only a doctor can confirm that, but if so, depending on any surgery dates, a spring marathon is out of the question and likely West Highland Way.

On a positive note I’m in the Tor des Geants lottery. I’m likely to get in. It’s 205 or so miles with around 75,000 vertical feet of climbing through the Aosta Valley in Italy. It’s big, scary, and in September. Why do I do these things! With an expedient surgery I could likely still make this happen, much like my last hernia, a fall race worked out fine. 

I guess the first step is a doctor appointment. 

It’s time to figure out what to focus on training-wise. I’ve probably said it already but with Stratford Marathon on the list I need to start to make myself faster. I have a solid base and the distance isn’t a concern it’s the pace. The other day I easily ran 18 hilly miles at 7:12 pace, way ahead of schedule distance-wise.

Diglis footbridge over River Severn on a frosty morning

Key components of running are around 80% training easy, I mean REAL easy, and 20% moderate to hard. Easy is hard to do. As an estimate, “easy” is 70% of your max heart rate. Max heart rate is 220 - age. I’m 43 and my estimated max hr is 177, take 70% of that and I need to run UNDER 124 beats per minute! That’s slow! The tough part is fitting in easy miles because time is limited for me. Plus run commuting I need to be somewhere or I’m late to work or late to get the kids from school. I’ve got a lot of easy miles under my belt as it is so I really need to add in two moderate to hard workouts. That’s the simple plan for now. 

Builders working on a fish ladder, Worcester Cathedral in the trees 

Fortunately the marathon training lines up very nicely with the ultra I have planned. I just need to get a specific marathon plan implemented. I’m really excited for this however my focus shifts then more to running, then martial arts takes a back seat which bums me out. Everyone always talks about finding balance. There is no such thing. The tables always turn favoring one thing over another. It’s just prioritizing what’s most important at the time. 

Path flooded out. Again. River Severn at Diglis Hotel.

Tor des Geants lottery is in February. I’ll be in it but I’m hoping I don’t get in. It’s an extremely intimidating event and honestly I don’t know if I’m up for it yet. Besides I’ll be gone a week in Italy and that’s probably a 10 out of 10 on the selfish scale! However, after following the recent Spine Race, 270 some miles through northern England in winter (ie worst conditions ever), I’m still very much intrigued by the super long events. Here’s a link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spine_Race

Not too many photos lately. It’s been the usual gray. Wanted a close up of the welder but running took precedence. I envisioned that as a pretty cool close up.