Come...

... uppance.

I'm sure it's on its way.

Following from last night's disaster I applied the heat pack all night and hoped it would pull up OK this morning. Not with a view to running - I was never a chance of that after last night - but to see if I could get around this morning without hobbling.

In short, I couldnt.

I walked in to work, and it didn't take long on that walk for me to be hobbling noticably. By the end of my walk to the bus it was almost pantomime.

It got worse.

At the moment the bathrooms on my floor at work are being refurbished, so to get to the bathroom I have to either go up or down a floor. I felt the call of nature and headed upstairs this morning, which was OK, but coming back downstairs was frankly excruciating. Basically any time I have to point my toes it hurts my calf. Quite a lot. So going downstairs is difficult, and even more difficult if the stairs are not long enough, as is the case in our building.

It got worse.

This afternoon we had a fire drill.

Four floors of walking down stairs, one step at a time, trying not to hold up the people behind me. And, given the company in the stairwell, trying not to swear too much.

These happen about once every three months and they have it today. Friggin' typical.

So at the end of the day I headed to the physio appointment, basically waiting for the inevitable. I explained what happened last night. Sarge gave me a fitness test...

"Try and hop on your bad leg"

"OK, I ... AAAARGH!"

"OK, that's a no then. You're out of the City to Surf."

He gave me a rub down and some acupuncture on the calf.

It got worse.

I'm unable to train for cricket for about two weeks, which is a kick in the guts. But at least I can still do some exercise - the bike, the swim, the ergo, and obviously weights.

But that didn't stop this week being completely disrupted for training. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, dammit.

Excuse for what?

I'm up to 90.5kg.

Puck. Again.

C2S: Am I In or am I Out?

An interesting week so far, no doubt about it.

In fact this is likely to turn into one of those things you tell your grandkids about. Real grandkids I mean, not illegitimate sprog. I wouldn't waste it on them.

"Kids, have I ever told you about the first time I tried to do the City to Surf? The trouble I had ...?"

So this is what happened. After speaking to some friends about it I finally went to a physio on Tuesday night.

As I'd already suspected, he confirmed it was strained and not torn, which was good news. He gave it a solid rub down - they hurt more than I remember - and gave me his advice. It was as follows:
(i) give it heat, not ice now
(ii) I'm still a chance to make it to the City to Surf
(iii) do some running between now and then - a little on Tuesday night and a little longer (half an hour) on Wednesday night, and don't be afraid to stop and stretch if need be
(iv) come back on Thursday and we'll see where it's at

Now then, parts (i), (ii) and (iv) were easy enough to deal with, but there were some complications with part (iii).

I was at the physio between getting home from work and heading straight out to dinner with dad. I was still in work clothes, and we were off to have Chinese BBQ for dinner, a decent feed.

I headed out for dinner, filled up, had a coffee with dad, and then headed home. I got home at 9:45 still very full from dinner but had to go for a run - I had to.

My physio said that for Tuesday night I should walk five minutes and then jog five minutes, then do it again, and see how I go. Take it easy, only jogging: not running.

So I did that and surprisingly felt better and more comfortable jogging than walking. I finished the little jog/walk quite confident and happy with myself.

The calf felt a bit tight on Wednesday morning but not too bad. I had a heat pack on it all Tuesday night to loosen it a bit.

Then Wednesday night happened.

I ran where I was always going to run: my old 6.6km course which usually took me about 33 minutes.

It went well for quite a while. Running on a gentle slope along Rosalie Park was not a problem (I thought it might be), and the short hills on Derby Road were OK also.

I got to the end of Derby Road, where I turn back towards Rokeby Road and home, and felt it tighten considerably, so I stopped. It had hurt before but not too badly. I stretched it out, as advised, and walked it for a while on Hamersley Road.

I jogged again a few minutes later and stopped quickly as it soon got back to being painful.

After walking a bit longer, I started up again, along Rokeby Road. It felt sore but manageable. As I was jogging I actually thought to myself "I'm about a 20% chance of doing this on Sunday, which isn't too bad"

I turned the corner for the run home along Bagot Road. It got a bit tighter but still OK.

Then, crossing a road, a massive sharp pain suddenly shot through my lower leg. Just below the calf and above the tendon. I let out an audible yelp (that is to say, I heard it myself over my iPod, which was pretty loud).

I hobbled back to my house, thankfully not too far away, furious.

I'm actually surprised at how gutted I am by this, which will surely rule me out of the City to Surf.

My reaction surprised me because it shows me exactly how competitive I am, and how much I was looking forward to this. I was really champing at the bit to run, probably more than I realised.

I still have to apply heat to it tonight and go to the physio tomorrow, but it seems at this stage like it's a fait accompli, and that I can't run the 12km to the beach. I hope it's not torn, and doesn't rule me out of any cricket.

More Lethargy

Not very inspiring is it?

This week, on top of my still-injured calf stopping me from running. That's bad.

But I got medical advice from a mate and gave it heaps of rest. That's good.

I was laid up with the flu on Tuesday and Wednesday. That's bad.

But I got two days off work. That's good.

So no exercise for me at all this week. That's bad.

But my flu meant I didn't eat much. That's good.

But I had a heap of tea. That's bad.

But tea is a diuretic. That's good.

But the food I ate when I did eat was not healthy. That's bad.

But diuretic means you wee a lot. That's good.

And despite all that there's been virtually no change to my weight, steadyish at 88kg. That's bad.

As Homer would say ... can I go now?

PS. Clearly the lethargy is extending to the actual writing of the blog.

Trouble

Big trouble in fact.

As I was doing my Tuesday run, and I was about as far from my house as I get in these runs, I started up a long, gentle hill. For most of the run, I'd felt a bit of tightness in my left calf. I'd actually felt tightness when I started running and stopped to stretch it out. I couldn't do it properly but thought I'd done enough. And I had for the flat, or slightly downhill part of the run.

But the only real hill - and it's not much of one - kicked in and not long into it the tightness got worse. And then it got painful. It didn't take long until I realised I wasn't going to finish the run. I was less than 5km into it.

So I walked back and swore a bit on the way. But I did also enjoy the view - there are a not of nice houses along my jogging route.

But that was small consolation. On Wesneday and Thursday I couldn't do cardio at the gym (I'm getting some advice on this at the moment - how it's best to maintain some decent cardio exercise), so I was left with about 15 minutes of decent exercise during the week.

And I learnt the hard way today that I need to take a lot of care with my calf. On the way home I literally jumped off the bus and landed on the balls of my feet. My calf twinged again, enough for me to audibly cry out in front of strangers.

I think I am in genuine doubt for my first City to Surf. It's 17 days away, and there are a few hills in that run, which will give the calves a workout. If calves are anything like a hamstring it might take a while to get better.

To literally add insult to injury, I'm back up to 88.5kg.

Puck.

Back to the Gym

After the shambles that was last week, this week could only be an improvement.

And it was, marginally.

I couldn't run on Tuesday night because I worked late and had to head to my parents' place, and had pizza commitments on Wednesday nights. I managed to get a run in before making pizzas for the house.

The run felt not much better than last week, with a stitch developing early in the run and never really going away, I felt like I wasnt doing much better than last week, so when I finished I was surprised to see my time was a big improvement on the previous week: 46:20.

I was stoked with that, but even better, I was able to walk 48 hours later, unlike last week.

So on Thursday I headed to the gym and gave my upper body its first workout since my return. Not a very satisfying workout as I was again late getting there thanks to work. Again.

So after a lame week of exercise and (home made) pizza-related diet issues, I had some trepidation in approaching the scales.

Unlike the week after ToMarto Cup, I was unable to convincingly shake off the kilos, and I'm on 87.5kg.

Leppitch is a knob

... who doesn’t know how to use apostrophes.