2018 Is Shaping Up!

2017 was a difficult year for running.

At the start of the year, I ran Country to Capital for a 3rd time and it was an utter death march to get to the end of it. My slowest showing on that route, despite the pretty good conditions. I needed to grit through it despite having nothing to prove, I did need to use the experience to feel the discomfort of finishing in pain when I just wanted to stop. It wasn't going to cause lingering injury, so it was fine to push through it for 24 miles of unpleasant slog to learn how to do it for when there is actually something to prove. Then I was persuaded to run The Moyleman (which I'd failed to finish the year before - I'd had enough at half way and got a lift to the finish), which was actually quite fun despite the fact I'm not much of a fan of the South Downs. After that, it was a few longish weekend back to back runs before getting on with the job of running the length of the British mainland, from bottom to top (Land's End to John O'Groats - LEJoG).

Things didn't go 100% to plan with that, and I had to take a few weeks out in the middle which extended the impact of it further into the year than I'd intended. I did finish and I have a lot of writing about it that I need to find time for still as well as dealing with all of the photos, but it was now mid-August and I had nothing planned for the rest of the year. With no idea of how LEJoG would go, if I'd be injured, or need weeks or even months of recovery, I deliberately kept the calendar empty. 4 weeks after finishing, with no target or pressure to do anything in particular, I entered a half marathon on a whim while I was abroad for work. And pulled out a PB, got cocky and entered a local marathon which I promptly DNFd (did 3/4 laps - just didn't fancy finishing in the dark and the laps were getting tedious). The final race of the year was another half marathon, at which both my husband and I managed to fall over and scrape up our knees. And that was the last run of any note in 2017.

My Training Plan (red = not done, yellow = sort of done, green = done correctly)

And I lost my mojo. The following weeks I found it harder and harder to get out for a run. Despite having recovered physically just fine from LEJoG, I was getting tired a lot and making poor eating and drinking choices which didn't help. Though I'd already decided that I wanted to train for a faster marathon in the Spring, I just ran out of giving a crap about running enough to do much of it, or with any decent quality.

However!

Strava featured me in a couple of their social media posts, which brought a few more folks to see my long run of the summer, then they featured me in their "2017 in Stats" blog post which was nice. And in the same breath as Sandra Vi who just beat the trans-America running speed record. (though they somehow decided I'd broken a world record with my run, which I haven't and never said I did anywhere, and that I'd run top to bottom, which is back to front! I'd also had to stitch together the individual days running into one GPX file and call it a "hike" instead of a run so it didn't mess with my annual running stats as I wanted to keep the individual day entries with the photos and messages from other people)

And RunUltra posted an article of my run (word limits are hard!)

And here we are, in the last days of 2017 and 2018's running calendar is shaping up pretty well actually! I've entered a few races and have a few targets to hit:

• April - Rome Marathon. Targeting London Marathon Good For Age (03:49:59)
• May - Cape Wrath Ultra. 8 days, multi-day, 250 miles
• August - GB Ultra, Race Across Scotland. 214 miles in under 100 hours
• October - Autumn 100. 100 miles, aiming just to finish

So the first few months of the year will be training to try to get me quicker again (it's a long time since I managed 22:36 for 5000m) but without losing endurance base for the longer stuff that comes afterwards. And I'll want to chuck in some fun stuff before, in between and afterwards - there are some work trips abroad which could present some fun race tourism opportunities.

Oh, and I've been nominated for a Run Ultra Blog award, so if you like what you've read here, please cast a vote for me (and you could win a shiny, new Suunto watch)!

LEJoG 2017 - looking back and forward

If you don't follow me somewhere else on the Internet, the latest is that I had to stop after 21 and a half days due to excruciating pain in my leg, most likely tibialis anterior tendinitis.

I tried to rest for a couple of days to let things heal, after a local GP had a look at it, but even staying off it for 2 days made zero difference to the amount of pain once I'd really got going for the day's distance.  I tried strapping it and bracing it, but it got so painful that I ended up howling with pain and unimaginable amounts of tears and snot streaming down my face for the well over an hour it took me to get down from Minch Moor to Traqair.  At that point I was in the most pain I've ever been in, including when I broke my collarbone towards the final 15km of the bike leg of Ironman 70.3 Galway in 2012. So I decided to get myself to the nearest A&E as I was worried that it was something broken.  Luckily for me there was a health centre in the village a couple of miles away and they helped me get a taxi to Borders General hospital. I left the hospital with a pair of crutches, a letter to my GP, and instructions to stuff my face with Ibuprofen and paracetamol for a couple of days and then just the Ibuprofen for the rest of the week. I'd been avoiding NSAIDs to that point, due to it being a super bad idea to take those while doing heavy exercise. After 2 days, however, the pain was hugely reduced to the point where I was OK walking a bit without crutches, but my leg/ankle still got creaky and sore after a while. So, I've been really doing nothing now for a few more days (it's 5 days now since I stopped) and there's a little swelling still and some restriction in flexing my ankle in either direction (I've been doing exercises to make sure it doesn't get stiff), but I've been tentatively looking at when I can get back and finish the route. Sure, I could have taken Ibuprofen for the remaining 15.5 days and carried on in the hope that it worked well enough and didn't cause my kidneys to give up, but I wasn't willing to do that to myself. I'm stubborn, but not totally stupid.

Thanks to @benunsworth for making this brilliant map!

I've done 630 miles. There's 405 left to do. I need to avoid (Scottish) school holidays and key work events and negotiate *another* 2 weeks unpaid time off, but it looks like later in October might work and I should be well recovered by then.

Looking back, it's slightly surreal to think of how far up the UK I got - well into Scotland, not far short of Edinburgh. I saw some beautiful and very varied scenery, pretty villages, brilliant cafes, pubs and B&Bs. I problem solved my way through many obstacles: ankle to shoulder height nettles, gorse, thistles, holly and hawthorn; electric fences; barbed wire; herds of cows; very anti-social land owners (hey, yeah, I'll just stick a head-height bank of soil and a ditch across the entire width of the field and an electric fence, a hawthorn hedge and some barbed wire!); broken stiles and bridges; broken/locked/wired shut gates; missing bridges; unrelenting sun for 2x days with no shade; cold; wet feet for 12+ hours; 45-50mph winds while up on the highest point of the moors... etc. I've met some really lovely people and been shown great kindness many times. I've spent days where the only talking I've done is saying hello to cows and rabbits. I've gotten a *lot* of vitamin D! And I've raised over £3,500 for Public Health Collaboration (so far)! My muscles and engine were fine throughout. I slept really well. I used every single piece of kit I'd packed except the two things I'd really only need in the more remote bits of Scotland - a fabric bucket for collecting water, and a water bottle with a filter in it.

It's been an amazing experience; sure, there were tough bits and I got frustrated and upset a good few times mainly due to people being unthinking/inconsiderate (e.g. car drivers who have no idea of the highway code and how to deal with pedestrians). But it took a biomechanical breakdown to put it on pause for now.

I've got pretty bad blues - I wanted to do it in one, and I'm really missing being out in the countryside whatever the weather. Need some time and care before anything hard - physical or mental.

Mallorca 70.3 2014 - not a race report

(There's an actual race report here at Mr TOTKat's blog, if you're looking for one.)

After the Rotterdam Marathon, I made my right knee quite cross. Under orders from my coach, I was not to race at Mallorca 70.3 2 weeks after that happened.

So, the plan was to fly out to Mallorca the Monday before the race, ride the course and swim a bit and then ride a bit more. but no race for me.  As the week progressed, somewhat predictably, I decided that I would at least do the swim and bike legs on race day, but not the run.  Then I thought I'd see how I felt at the beginning of the run and stop if anything felt funny/wrong.

Friday, the day before the race, we went to rack our bikes and hang up our transition bags at race transition.  I found my bike racking point and noted the land-marks so I could find it again when I came barrelling in from the swim course the following day.  Then I headed back through to hang up my red and blue bags and then meet up again with Mr TOTKat on the way out of transition and back to the hotel.  As I walked through the women's changing tent I realised I still had my bike computer in the blue bag, so decided to hang up my bag and then jog back to my bike to leave it on my bike ready in the morning.  My bike was a long way out from the transition tent, and on the jog back again to the tent I saw that Mr TOTKat was looking for me - probably wondering what was taking so long.

I jogged onwards towards the tent and in a sudden blur of confusion, tripped on the carpet and went flying (apparently in quite a balletic manner) forwards, with speed.  Landing on my right knee first, I somehow landed even more heavily on the left and I heard a popping sound.  I rolled onto my back, pain radiating out from my left kneecap, and started to bawl my eyes out.  I was convinced I'd broken my knee.

As the volunteers came to assist, I looked at my knee and, in the same way an ink drop spreads in a glass of water, I could see dark purple/black spreading out fast from a point on the front of my knee.  I watched in horror as it spread and my immediate thought was I needed ice right away.  The volunteers helped me up and into the tent, gave me water and some ice appeared.  A volunteer pressed it against my knee and I tried to sit up a bit rather than lie flat.  It felt OK for a few moments, but then I felt really sick.  The blue/black colouration started to recede almost as miraculously appeared and a medically trained volunteer made sure I could bend it.  I had waves of nausea still, so they were keen to make sure I hadn't banged my head (I hadn't).

But, this was it.  Race over.  Both knees were swollen quite a bit, grazed from the carpet, and the left was really difficult.  Mr TOTKat helped me to hobble back to the hotel.  I felt so stupid.  The over-riding feeling was that I'd been a complete idiot. I could have left the bike computer until the morning as we would have full access to bikes in the morning to put water on them and check tyres etc. but for some reason I decided that Garmin needed to go on there right then.

So.  Coach got his desire that I didn't race, but I also only got to ride once that week instead of 3-4 times.  I swam a few times, but only one proper swim set.  And I got to pay for a race where I didn't even cross the start line.  On the plus side, I didn't have to run in 32C.  Which was brutal even just supporting on the day.

On the other plus side; we got to meet a whole bunch of new people, Mr TOTKat had his best 70.3 swim time ever, and we had a week away from work.

Bugger

Trainers are the easiest bit of sports equipment to own and maintain. Once you've selected ones that fit and suit, you just wear them and maybe chuck them in the washing machine occasionally if they get awful.

But.

I'm pretty sure that getting this wrong has resulted in a high likelihood of me not racing Mallorca 70.3 in just over a week's time.

I've run in these pink trainers for over 600km, including a couple of Ultra marathons both on and off-road. They've been comfy, I've had no blisters or injuries and they've been great.  I wore them for the Rotterdam Marathon a couple of weeks ago and got baaad blisters. I put that down to running hard, in heat and on the road.  Until today.

Yesterday we ran home; 15km at a reasonable clip, and my feet got sore.  The little toe joint on the left and the ball and toes on the right and a *huge* blister formed on my left arch.  My right knee niggled and niggled.  I decided to throw away the shoes when I got home.

This morning, my right knee was swollen, sore and I could only just bend it a bit.  I'm elevating, cooling and compressing it along with taking Ibuprofen and I'm fairly sure the main contributor to this problem is the knackered state of those shoes.

So perhaps it's not quite that straight-forward, that there trainers management. And it can have some unpleasant results if you get it wrong.

Mirror mirror... who is the chubbiest?

Since Ironman UK this year, I've put on just under 4kg.  Now, given at the time of the race I was about 2-4kg heavier than what might (still don't know for sure) be a good "racing weight" for me at the time, that puts me now more than a stone over a good racing weight.  That's a lot.  And quite depressing.  In the off-season, it's recommended not to gain more than 4% if your total ideal racing bodyweight; 4kg is almost 7% for me.

OK, so I'm not a professional athlete and paying the mortgage doesn't depend on my athletic performance (or looks), but I revert to being a normal human being when I see photos of female pro athletes and feel utterly fat and inferior.

See here the lovely Lesley Paterson - two time XTerra World Champion and all sorts of other triathlon successes as a pro athlete.  My god she's buff!  Look at those thighs, biceps, calves and abs!  Now I know I have some pretty mean muscles myself (albeit a tiny bit depleted in the arms due to lack of being allowed to do stuff), but they're fairly well hidden under a layer of reasonably thick fat.

6-8kg fat is a lot of fat.  Really a lot.  Fat isn't particularly dense, so volume-wise that's quite big.  And that means I have problems with clothes that are in any way structural (e.g. bras, belts, things with waist-bands) in that the structural bits dig in to the fat bits and make it look awful (sausages!).  Plus, dammit, since I got fit, I got vain!  I liked looking almost good in clothes - sports or otherwise - I was hovering around the 20% body fat mark!  And 6-8kg of fat is, well, 6-8kg of extra weight to be schlepping around and slowing me down when running, for example.  (Hello Thames Turbo half marathon in less than a month's time.)

(is it me, or does Ms 30% look a lot better than Ms 25%?)

The answer is simple, yes?  I've done it before; losing weight.  But... it was different then.  I wasn't exercising at all and I was miserable and needed something to control in my life.  And as energy intake and expenditure is all a bit inexact on a normal day-to-day basis, the more exercise you do, the bigger the errors get.  I could compensate by assuming minimal calorie expenditure with exercise, but that could cause other problems like changes in how my body processes food and under what circumstances.  It's all so much more complicated now!  Add in the fact that for the last 10 weeks I've been unable to do a lot of the exercise I'd been doing that magically lost me 4kg leading in to the start of the season this year, and I'm still not doing any of that level of exercise and won't be for a while even when I am allowed to start rehabilitating the muscles in my arms.

And then there's the festive seasons... my birthday, Halloween, Bonfire Night, pre-Christmas, Christmas, post-Christmas, New Year... all great excuses to pork-out/drink lots but also great excuses to dress up in nice clothes that I don't look so hot in right now.  Wah!

So, do I call truce on myself and accept that I don't -need- to lose body fat at the moment as I'm neither unhealthily overweight (and inactive), nor does my livelihood depend on it, and the mental benefits of being less than strict might be good for me?  Or do I start to put some effort in, stick to calorie deficit, lock things down and drop those pounds?  (WLR reckons 3rd Feb to hit the top of my race weight window if I stick to 500kcals deficit per day and a 500g weight loss per week)  Given that I will want to focus a lot more and the mental effort required to do that 100% almost daily only lasts for so long (6-7 months in my experience) do I want to fritter that mental energy away now when I've got races up until the middle of November next year?

What to do?

Ow (but it's still good!)

Had a "fun" run session today.  01:50 planned with 30 minutes warm up, 15 minutes at half-marathon pace, 3 minutes recovery, 15 minutes at half-marathon pace and then jog down for 45ish minutes.

So, I jogged up to the common; there's a known 15ish minute circuit I could use and it takes about 30 minutes to get there.  Perfect!  There were a few frustrations around Garmin having a fit with pacing and being a bit random in the trees, but it settled and the pacing was pretty consistent throughout and I hit my half-marathon pace nicely, but over-cooked the recovery and jog down a bit.  Still some learning to do on that for sure.

At the start of the jog down, I hit a really muddy bridleway that was peppered with horse crap.  There was a moment where I pitched into some nasty brambles, tried to jump through to save myself but ended up sliced up on my legs.  I carried on for the last 40 minutes or so, thinking it was probably just a couple of tiny prickles, and it stung a bit, but when I got home...

 
And these are the thorns I pulled out of the wounds...

Looks a bit less bad cleaned up, but sore nonetheless.

The other leg wasn't so bad as the thorns hit lower down and on the front of my leg where I had long socks on.

So I'll be in shorts for the rest of today while those close up and scab over properly.  But I was proud that I achieved the goals of today's sessions and didn't stop and have a moment when I got injured (and that it wasn't serious at all - to be fair there were a lot of trees I could have ended up head-first into rather than just sliced by some brambles).  Good run!

Kneeees!

Oh!  The last few runs, shhhh!, my knees have been FINE!  Even today, in the slippery mud at Parkrun.  Not a peep out of them.  Kinda slightly a tiny bit happy about that.  Really hope they continue to behave, starting with tomorrow's Parkrun triple!

When I grow up, I want to be like Chrissie...

Chrissie Wellington is my hero.

I already did have a huge amount of respect and admiration for Chrissie Wellington and then there was Ironman Hawaii, the Ironman World Championships 2011 yesterday.  A couple of weeks out from the race, she had a bit of a crash and banged up the majority of the left side of her body; massive bruises, abrasions, the press was full of photos of the road rash.

In her own words... "Not once did I equate a triathlon race to armed conflict. That was until i crashed the bike last weekend, and ended up battered, bruised and yes, covered in sore, bleeding ‘war wounds’. Asphalt 1 = Chrissie 0. Long story short. I had a flat front tyre, didn’t realise, took a corner relatively fast, the wheel slipped from under me, skin hit tarmac. Or more accurately my left elbow (taking the epidermis off ones funny bone is decidedly unfunny), my hip (a bit of padding would have been nice – should have eaten more donuts), and all of the skin on my left leg ended up covering the tarmac.  (Unfortunately i also took out Drew Scott, who also suffered the consequences of the crash – for which i am hugely hugely sorry).

Yes, i have some nasty wounds. That day i lost the battle with the bike, lost a whole heap of bodily fluids and a considerable amount of skin, but I didn’t lose my fight."

It would have had quite an impact on training and mental state on the lead up to the race.  You can read the race reports elsewhere, but there was a lot of worry that Chrissie wasn't doing so well as she dropped further and further back on the bike leg, ending up 21 minutes behind the female leader.  It didn't look good at all.

Then on the run leg, she started to really reel them in.  One by one she passed athletes to come in the World Champion for a fourth time.  Through pain, the grind, the aching injury, the heat and the ground she needed to make up.  She did it.  She won and she showed the world that she is a one in a generation phenomenal athlete who is master of her own mind and body like nobody else.  And she came to professional sport late in life, to dominate the world of long course triathlon, showing us all that it's never, ever too late.

From Twitter...

chrissiesmiles Chrissie Wellington

i defied what i thought was possible. This is a dream come true.

chrissiesmiles Chrissie Wellington

But I hurt like i never have before, and had to dig into the depths of my body and soul. I think i need a plate of chips

CompressportUK CompressportUK

by chrissiesmiles

Post race press conf: 'I left every ounce of my heart and soul on the race course today' @chrissiesmiles

When I grow up, I want to be like Chrissie.  Only it probably is a teensy bit too late for me to win at Kona ;o)

Why is it only Tuesday?

I'm impatient for my finger to get healing.  Now I have dressings that don't stick to the end and tear it off whenever they get changed, the pain is reduced and the healing has actually started.  I -need- it to have closed up properly before Monday.  Monday is the last sprint triathlon in the Thames Turbo race series and I need to get to the start line, never mind actually finish.  What with an open wound on one finger, one knee that works if I tape it up, the other being more than slightly unreliable regardless of what I do to it, it's going to be a tall order to finish a sprint triathlon.

It makes me sad to think I've come a long way with this new sport in a reasonably short period of time and I may end the season this year as it began, with a DNF and disappointment.  I've taken 15 minutes (which also happens to be 15%) off my race time over 4 races so far and am confident I could get another minute or two off that time still, to get under 01:20:00 which would put me just about in the top 20% for my age category.  I so want that this year, to end the season.  And if I'm stopped from even starting the race because I have an open wound still...

Thursday this week I have a session with my tri trainer and he's going to do fitness assessments and general base-lining and I'm going to have to tell him I've done nothing of the plan he left me two weeks ago, because my knee hasn't been up to it.  And that I can't swim at the moment either.  It's just a catalogue of mishaps and makes me feel like a disaster area of self-inflicted (in one way or another) physical damage.

I can't work out how/where to get into Pose running.  The support in the UK is quite limited and the web site is awful.  I just want to find someone who can assess whether it might help/it's suitable for me.  Every lead on making running less stressful and worrying for the longer distances next year has to be followed up.

I can't give up on long course.

I won't.

Not for the sqeamish

Sorry if you came here through a feed that gives you the images whether you want them or not.  But here's where my finger is at...

I'm not sure how this is supposed to heal, it's just raw flesh exposed.  I have the missing piece but it's too dead to be put back, plus the NHS won't bother with it being so small.

Not swimming

There will be no long, boring swim tomorrow as I've succeeded in hacking a chunk of the tip of my finger off. No matter how clean Dorney Lake is, it's really not a good idea for me to be swimming right now. 10 days to the last Thames Turbo race of the year and I -should- be OK for that. The only worry is around handlebar grip for that. I'm sure I can take 40 or so minutes of discomfort if I have to, though.

Long, boring Saturday morning

I've got a 5km swim tomorrow.  *yawn* It is going to be... SO. BORING. The main reason for doing it was to regain some pride after the Thames swim a while back, and to check out what Dorney lake is like for the HSBC triathlon in September.  Now Mr TOTKat isn't swimming tomorrow, I've got nothing there around the pride regain.  Conversely, I couldn't be humiliated again by him beating me again as he's not swimming.

I've been quiet on the race training front recetly.  Mostly because I've done no cycling and very little running.  Since the Virgin Triathlon, I've done two long runs to extend my distance in the lead up to Nike+ Run To The Beat in a few weeks' time.  The first was two weekends ago and we did a long, slow run around the Wimbledon Common Parkrun route of about 9.5km.  As usual, I strapped up my left knee and that felt lovely.  Confident and comfortable, all went well until about 6-7km in when my right knee started to niggle... and niggle.. and get worse and worse.  I pushed through as it didn't feel the same as my left knee does and I was keen not to give in to anything that really wasn't a proper problem.  Which was a mistake.  5 days of ow followed.

The following weekend we extended the distance to 13.9km.  Again my left knee strapped up and fine and I strapped the right to see what might happen.  Same as the previous week.  Not good.  So, a trip back to the physio on Wednesday this week and he was unimpressed.  He can't really work out why/what is going on and is a bit peeved by it all.  A supposition now is that perhaps, as I've not been doing a lot of running in the grand scheme of things and I've not been doing running for very long (around 2 years), I'm actually just really bad at running.  Not just slow and crap (he laughed at my 10km time in the last triathlon, bastard), but slow and damaging and crap.

The current idea is to foam roll my awfully tight quads a bit, try a quick (deliberately a bit faster than usual) run to see if speed makes it worse/brings it on earlier, and try not strapping the left one to see how that is getting on.  In parallel, he's suggested I look at Pose method running.  Which is interesting in that when I started to learn to run, I did run very much like falling fowards and nowadays I run very upright so there may be something in the method change.

Anyone got any thoughts/ideas/experience with Pose?  I've read a bit and it seems logical in some ways, but...

Brick this!

I think I might get 'round next weekend.  If I can work out how to get the k-tape to stay on through the swim, it's going to work.

T2 brick test today; 31km bike followed immediately by a 7.8km run.  The secondary tests were, some race fuel (High5 EnergySource) to see if my stomach is OK with it, and drinking on the bike.

Apart from being yelled at by a twat in a Chelsea Tractor at Wimbledon Common (dude, if you had a less stupid car and a bit less of a vein sticking out on your forehead, you'll probably live longer), the bike was good.  I'm still completely useless at using a bottle on the bike - seriously, if you've never tried it, it's a lot harder than it looks.  I can get the bottle out of the rack relatively OK as long as I'm free-wheeling, but drinking is really difficult and getting it back in the rack again is pretty stressful.  I ended up with sticky drink on my hands, handlebars and down my leg a bit and some of it in my mouth.  My heart rate monitor hadn't worked for the cycle, so fuelling was really going to be a bit off as I'd got no idea of the amount I'd burned through.

31.16km in 01:11:04 including slowing down for traffic lights, being a total useless goit with the drinks bottle several times etc., so I'm hoping that will translate to 01:32 - 01:35 next weekend over the 40km race route.

I chugged the remainder of the fuel drink and the run started off pretty nicely.  As usual between bike and run, my legs felt a bit heavy at the start but I went off at a reasonable pace and the route was a loop of around 2.5km which allowed for stuff going wrong and being not too far from home if it did. 

Pace-wise, that's around my usual fastest 10km pace -without- having cycled 31km first.  So I'm quite encouraged by that.  That sort of pace should give me a 10km run time of around 55:00 - 56:00, hopefully.   My knee stayed quiet throughout and the only indication of anything not being perfectly fine was a tight hamstring into the back of the knee and that was it.

So, I'm pretty sure I'll get 'round next weekend.  No idea what transition times will look like, but with a 30:00 swim, a 01:35 bike and a 56:00 run I'm looking at an overall race time of 03:01:00 plus transition, so a target of 03:10:00 seems reasonable.

Kinda sorta rather promising

We pootled up to the common for a run on the Parkrun course; a 2.25 km loop, so if my knee went pop it was never far to hobble back to the car.  I was all strapped up with the K-tape and ready for a slow trot.

Given that at the British 10K 2 weekends ago my knee got angry around the 7km mark I had to go at least that far to see what happened.  We set off at a very gentle pace, really very very gentle and kept it steady for the first few km.  At 4km, everything was feeling fine so we agreed to turn up the gas at 7km to try to force something to happen if it hadn't already.

7km we took it up a notch and again at 8.5km and my knee was not only feeling OK, but it actually felt -better- than the other one.  It felt like a smooth, well-oiled joint; noticeably more comfortable and 'right' feeling than usual.  I tried to keep up with Mr TOTKat when he kicked off at 8.5km and almost sort of did then decided I was too under-fuelled to go on past 9km so we stopped there and had a gentle jog to cool down a bit before a stretch, drink and back home again.

So.  Without wanting to get too excited, I think the K-taping may have made some sort of difference.  How much of a difference will only become apparent with a brick session.  So I'm planning to do one tomorrow (and combine it with testing some race fuel for next weekend - OMG LONDON IS NEXT WEEKEND! *cough*  With all the injury mess, I've done no training and it's my first Olympic distance triathlon!  Halp!)

K-tape

Physio visit involved a recap of the MRI results (mild ITB irritation, fat pad inflammation and mild fraying of the cartilege - perhaps related to the syringing many years ago) and a bit of a trot with physio in tow, assessing my gait.  Apparently my back is very rigid, my hips do something weird and one foot does a floppy thing every 5-6 steps at slow speed but at fast speed my gait becomes much better.  He prodded my hips and glutes and did some deep-tissue work on those (OW!) to loosen things up a bit.

Current thinking is to tape my patella to encourage it to move a bit differently, to see what effect that has on the pain:-

Will go for a decent run at the weekend to see how that works out.  And in the mean time physio is drawing some pictures and having a think about what's going on with my hip movement to see what's going on there.  With 1 week left to London thereafter there may be some other interim management required to get me through that before the more long-term management strategy.

British 10K

Having specifically asked the orthopaedic surgeon whether I could safely train/exercise and not been told it was a bad idea, I decided to run the British 10K last weekend.

Having not run at all for a month (the last run was 4 weeks earlier and only 5km) and done naff all running at all in the last 4 months, it was always a bit of a stretch to consider even finishing a 10km run in any reasonable time (or, if you're being sensible about it, to go that far one one go).  But I'm nothing if not bloody-minded and pretty fed up about not being able to compete in sports events properly/at all at the moment.

It was an earlyish start and the tubes were quiet.  A good bowl of porridge in our bellies, we made our way in to town for the run.  There were a few runners on the tube, but nothing that gave any idea of the scale of this event even slightly.  It was only really apparent when we were lined up, queueing up the road to cross the start line.  We weren't all that far from the front and turning around to look behind us, the number behind us was phenomenal.  Around 25,000 people ran the British 10K - I say "ran", there were an awful lot of walkers.  People who walked from start to finish and never had intended to run (it's called the "British 10K run", the clue is in the title!), people who were just doing it for charity and that's where I went wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people raising money for charity.  But I think it absolutely ruins a lot of sport events; the London marathon is two events now, the elite runners and then people who raise money for charity by titting about in a banana costume.  It's not a sport event for anyone who isn't an elite because it's so hard to get a place without raising money for charity.  And, to be honest, I think that really really sucks.  Yes, there are people who are trying really hard, for them.  And there are people who simply can't run 10km.  But it's just frustrating for people who actually just want to enter a 10km running race and not be made to feel guilty for not raising money for charity.  Seriously, if I had to raise money for every race I entered I'd only be able to enter one per year because, you know what, people get charity fatigue and you can't just keep asking for sponsorship all of the time.  It's a sad state of affairs that a large proportion of the population equates "normal" people doing sporting events with raising money for charity and that there's no other reason you'd be doing it.  Oh I'm not sure where I'm going with this, it's just frustrating.

Anyway.  Race started, we ran.  We ran around everyone who was walking, and by god there were a -lot- of those all through the race.  I needed a wee from about 20 minutes before the start (yes there were loos but we were "kettled" for over 40 minutes before the start and I needed to go again) so spent a lot of time considering exactly how endurance runners deal with this sort of thing until the 4.5km mark where there were loos - yay!  I stopped my watch while I queued and weed and started it up again when I was done.  And it was rather warm.  I don't deal with warm very well.  Felt a lot better after the comfort break, but not long after that (around 7km) my knee decided to say something.  And it got noisier and noisier, but there was no point in not finishing, so I did.  57:something on the watch.  And then we went to find food and instant ice-packs.  And accidentally had awful burger and chips and beer...

...followed by a total fail when we got home when we ended up having takeaway pizza.  *sigh*

OK, so I managed to finish a 10km run, but I'm not feeling enthusiasm or a sense of achievement.  Mostly because my knee is still in indeterminate state, but that aside, the time was cack and the official time awful due to the pee stop (01:04!  Yes, the loo queue was looooong!).  How can that be something to even be OK about, never mind proud?

*clonk*

The good: After a good few calls, I think I may finally have got my MRI results and notes sent to the physio.

The bad: I have discovered a new symptom and I don't like it.  The knee, under load, now has an abnormal feeling movement when squatting (*clonk*).  Where load may be simply body-weight.  It feels Wrong.

I really don't like it.  And I'm not sure what to do with it.  I'm hoping that I get an appointment with my physio again soon with the MRI results notes through from the hospital and I can discuss it with him so I'll call the physio at lunch time tomorrow to see if the notes have arrived yet.

Somethingsomethingpinchedsomething

I was at work and in the middle of something when the surgeon phoned with my MRI results.  I caught something about "he (the sports physician who did the MRI) made a very bold statement and said it's definitely not the IT band" and "knee tracking" and "pinching the fat pad".  I asked if I need to lay off exercise and training and he said some stuff about being OK to do things that don't hurt.  It was all a bit too much of a context switch from what I was doing at work at the time to follow in any detail.  The important bits that I did take in were that I need a set of sessions with the physio, 6 to 8 of those, and that it's OK to do stuff.  To be honest, I really don't care any more what the diagnosis is, given most of the treatments/rehabilitations are exactly the same for an awful lot of knee-based injury.  As long as there's nothing that's going to get worse over time if we don't do something with it and given there's nothing going on with bones or cartilage, risk there is extremely low.

So I did a quick trot around the block a couple of times this morning.  Average pace 08:12, peak 06:17, only over 2.5km but I've not run in 4 weeks, so best not to go nuts.  (so, er, I'll be doing, or at least starting, the London 10K tomorrow *cough*)

Still no news really

Saw the sports physician yesterday.  He prodded a bit and took history and decided it's probably an insertion of the ham string tendon.  He wanted to prove it's not a cartilage problem for sure, given it's all very close together around that area, so booked me in for an MRI.  The MRI was later in the day and I got to stick my leg inside a 1.5 Tesla magnet.  Noisy thing!

I should get a call from the orthopaedic surgeon with the results tomorrow (as the sports physician is on holiday now).  So, hopefully I'll actually have a concrete diagnosis by the end of the day.

Funny how we started with a suspected insertion a few weeks back, went through the possibly hysterical break and/or dislocation, through cartilage damage and back to an insertion again.

No real update yet

But I have an appointment tomorrow to see a sports physician with a bunch of diagnostic toys.  What's been nice over the last couple of days is a call from my physio, following up where I'd got to with getting a referral to someone with some cool diagnostic toys and then a call today from my GP to follow up from his side.  Well, he's not my assigned GP, but he's the doctor at the surgery I've been seeing for my knee wonkiness.

Current suspect between the physio and GP is now cartilage, but we'll see tomorrow.