Testing times

Two weeks ago, I had my 4th shock wave treatment for this bloody heel spur and plantar fascia-not-quite-itis.  Lars the Osteopath gave me the thumbs up to do some test runs last week so, with his guidance firmly in mind, I tested. 

Three jog-walks, all 30 minutes in length.  The first one was 2 minutes jogging/2 minutes walking, which I did on a football pitch for some extra softness underfoot.  The second one was 4 minutes jogging/1 minute walking on the road.  And the third was 2x15 minutes with 2 minutes of walking, also on the road.  All of which had the Lars stamp of approval.  And they all felt fine.  The first one was ached slightly but there was no discomfort at all with the second session, and both of those felt fine afterwards.  However, although the third session felt absolutely fine during the jog/walk (and actually felt the best of the three sessions), by that evening the discomfort had increased to 3 out of 10 on my personal pain scale.  And when I got out of bed the next morning, it initially was 4 out of 10 which is the highest that it had been since I started the shock wave treatments.

I was gutted.  Even though the discomfort quickly decreased to 2.5 and then to 1, I feared that it wasn't a good sign.  I spent most of Monday morning at work in Shetland (where I am this week) firing off shrieking panicky texts to Adam, Ben, and Lars.  Adam and Ben both said the same thing:  don't panic, it could just be your heel getting used to being used, see what Lars says.  And what did Lars say?  It's clearly not better, these things can take a long while to clear up, be patient, and come back for a 5th and probably 6th shock wave.  Gutted again.

On the slightly positive side, Lars did say that it's okay to keep doing jog/walks as long as they are at a level that doesn't aggravate my heel.  So, with Ben's guidance, I did 30 minutes of 2 minutes jog/2 minutes walk yesterday in torrential rain and 20mph wind.  (Ben didn't suggest the rain and wind, by the way - that was a bonus extra.)  My heel ached a bit (only 1 out of 10) but was fine afterwards and is okay today, and for a brief time, I felt like a hardy Shetland runner again.

I am so close to putting all of this to one side - no more running, no more jogging, no more walking, no more cross-training - and just letting this bloody heel get on with healing in the absence of any impact whatsoever but have been told (with varying degrees of politeness) by Adam, Ben, and Lars that this is possibly just a bit of an over-reaction.  Good thing that they can't see my IT'S NOT FAIR AND I HATE BEING PATIENT face as I'm writing this then.

You get what you pay for

Now that I'm firmly into the semi-retired stage of my life, my need to make the 50 mile round-trip from home to Inverness (where my office is located) has drastically reduced.  This has meant that if I wanted to use the gym on days when I wasn't scheduled to work, I had make extra trips into town.  This wasn't as much of a problem when I was running - all of my cardio was outside, and I just used the gym for strength and conditioning when I was in town for work - but during my recovery from this heel injury, this added at least an extra 150 miles (and corresponding petrol costs) to my weekly travels.  So I finally made the change that I had been thinking about for a while:  I cancelled my membership at my posh Inverness gym and signed up for the Highland Council scheme that, for half the price of my posh gym, lets me use any of the Council gyms.  Two of these are within 20 minutes of my house, which is much more practical for a rehabbing runner.

Now, I am someone who likes my luxuries (hence the posh gym), so I was apprehensive about what to expect from the less state-of-the-art facilities provided by a cash-strapped Council.  I've been using the Council gyms for several weeks now, and I needn't have worried.  Here is how it all stacks up:

• If I want state-of-the-art equipment, the Inverness branch of the scheme has just had an extensive upgrade.

• The equipment at the two other branches that I've used is a bit more...well used, shall we say.  A lot of it looks like the equipment that my posh gym got rid of a couple of years ago.  But it all works and does what I need it to do.  

• My only unhappiness is the quality of the videos of outdoor scenes on the cross-training equipment.  At the posh gym, we had videos of trails along beaches, in the mountains, and through the forests in exotic locations.  At the Council gyms, the videos are of paved paths crowded with people who walk into you; paved paths used by dog walkers (at one point, I counted 20 dogs running free - and a couple of dogs having a romantic interlude - and the person doing the filming had to stop several times when passing dogs jumped up on them); and a paved path along side a busy A-road.  Just a bit down market for my tastes.  

• I have had more people say hello to me, strike up a conversation with me, and respond to my own social overtures in the three weeks at the Council gyms than I have in the 10 years that I spent at the posh gym.  It's a much more relaxed setting.

• The changing rooms are all a bit dire and I can't imagine ever using them; in fact, I haven't seen anyone else using them either.  However, there is a positive side to a lonely changing room:  no more being huffed at by ladies-who-lunch because I've taken 'their' locker, and no more ladies-who-lunch walking in on me in my shower cubicle because 'I always use this one' and then waiting outside the cubicle until I finish, even though THE OTHER 9 SHOWERS ARE FREE.  (Yes, that really happened.  And she didn't even apologise.)

So, for a vastly reduced fee, I get access to numerous gyms that are much more convenient to my house; equipment that, while not top of the line, still allows me to do my cross-training with no problems; a friendly and relaxing atmosphere; and no battles over lockers and showers.  I can certainly put up with the uninspiring outdoorsy videos for all of that.  And who knows?  Perhaps navigating those crowds of people and animals will do wonders for my patience. 

Virtually annoyed

Tourist season in the Big City of Inverness is not one of my favourite times.  Not only is traffic a nightmare (it took me 40 minutes to drive across town yesterday, a journey that normally takes 10 minutes), but walking has its own hazards.  I was fully prepared yesterday, after a week of dodging pedestrians on the High Street, to head butt the next person who either 1) came to a dead stop in front of me 2) cut across my path or 3) walked into me.  How difficult is it to LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING???

Today, though, I was able to stay on the much quieter Black Isle and my drive to the small local gym in nearby Fortrose was notable only for a couple of cyclists and an older person on a mobility scooter, all of which were easily overtaken.  I had a 40 minute cross-training session to do - I might not be able to run, but apparently that's not an excuse to do nothing - including 20 minutes at threshold effort, which I did on the elliptical machine.  Rather than watching television on the elliptical's monitor, I prefer to watch one of the Outdoors videos in which you move along forest trails, lakeside paths, and other scenic settings.  Pretending that I am outside helps to distract me from how mind-numbingly boring cross-training can be.

Anyway, today's choice was one that I haven't used before, a video of a paved walkway along San Francisco Bay, leading to the Golden Gate Bridge.  From the start, the person who had been operating the camera had to dodge and weave their way around random walkers, cyclists, and dogs.  I could feel myself getting irritated with all of this and tried to remind myself that it wasn't real.  However, when one of the walkers coming towards the camera JUST KEPT ON COMING, forcing the camera operator to stop and then move around the walker (and which made ME come to a stop as well, like it was really happening), the annoyance that had just been in my head to that point spilled out of my mouth. 'Oh FFS, get out of the way,' I growled, much to the surprise of the older gentleman sweating away on the elliptical beside me.  He finished his workout very shortly after that - I can't say that I blame him.

Cross-training:  the more like real life you can make it, the better.

A shocking time

Seven weeks and two days ago, I took on London2Brighton and managed 56k before I pulled out due to excruciating pain in my right heel.  I knew going into it that my troublesome heel might not last the distance, but I wanted to give it a go and see how far I could get.  Unfortunately, it started to niggle at 10k and was verging on proper pain at 20k, which was hugely disappointing as I had gone further with less  pain during my training runs.  At the 40k check point, it was so sore that I was limping while running and came into the checkpoint fully prepared to stop, but 30 minutes of eating crisps and drinking tea and texting just about everyone that I know for advice helped me to realise that I wanted to try to carry on to the half-way check point at 56k.  Which somehow I did.  I couldn't run because my heel was entirely too sore - it was like having knives stabbing into me with every step - but I did manage to very slowly hobble my way for 16 kilometres.  It took hours and hours and hours but hey, I got a t-shirt and a Half-Way finishers' medal out of it.  Sensibly, I decided not to hobble on for the remaining 44k.

I haven't been able to run since, aside from a disastrous test-jog three weeks ago.  Adam and I had been working on the assumption that I just had a bruised heel but my reaction to the test-jog made him think that something else was going on.  He thought that I needed an x-ray to rule out a heel spur and, since we knew that Lars the Osteopath (who had so successfully treated my hamstring tendinopathy with dry needling a couple of years ago) has an x-ray machine at his practice, I booked myself in.

It turns out that I didn't need an x-ray.  Apparently shrieking and trying to kick Lars in the head when he dug into my heel was diagnostic all by itself.  In addition to the heel spur, he also identified very unhappy plantar fascias from all of my limping.  'We have a great treatment for this,' he said, 'and you should see rapid improvement within three sessions - but it's going to hurt.'  Pfft, I thought, I'm a tough ultra runner.  How bad can it possibly be?  The answer:  pretty fucking bad.

Heel Spur posed by model.

Hello, Shockwave Therapy.  I have never in my entire life felt anything as painful as this.  It's like having a tiny jackhammer pound on the sorest part of your body for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably no more than 10 minutes.  I've had three treatments so far and the first one was so painful that I didn't even have the breath to swear.  But after the first treatment, I was walking pain free for the first time in months.  After the second treatment, I had several days of feeling like I had a normal foot again.  I had the third treatment yesterday and am enjoying another pain free day today.  We now give things two weeks to settle down and then will review progress, including whether I can start introducing running again.  I'm not necessarily expecting to get the all clear in two weeks, but I am feeling positive that it's all moving in the right direction.

Just the facts, please

I was going to write a long whingeing post about my right heel pain but, frankly, I'm tired of hearing myself go on about it.  However, in the interests of keeping track of my injuries and niggles in case they reappear in the future, I will just report the facts:

• I've had a lot of pain in my right heel pad for the last two weeks.  The discomfort is more or less manageable while I'm actually running but afterwards and first thing in the morning, it's very very very painful.

• Adam's best guess is that it's related to all of the not-quite-broken-toe limping that I've been doing while walking and also to probably unconsciously changing my gait while running in an attempt to protect my toe.

• He also assured me that the problem doesn't originate in the plantaris or the plantar fascia, and that it's not a bone spur.  (I had never heard of the latter, but Adam made me promise not to consult Dr Google.  So far, I've resisted the urge.)  He thinks that I've bruised the tissues around my heel bone and just need to give it time to settle.

• So, on Adam's advice and with the support of Ben, I didn't run yesterday.  Amazingly, and due entirely to Adam's efforts on Tuesday, this morning was the first morning since this started that I've been able to put weight on my heel when I've first gotten out of bed.  And while there's still a vague ache, it's nothing like it was.  I even felt like I could try a short run.  I shared that enthusiasm with Adam who responded with 'ABSOLUTELY NOT!' and, because I am a cooperative patient who has learned from past mistakes, I spent the day sitting on the sofa with my only walking being to the kitchen to check out the biscuit supply.  So, no running today either.

• And I'm not running tomorrow because even if my heel feels ready, what with my Saturday and Sunday runs, that would mean that I'd be running three days in a row and even I know that would be a run too far.  Hopefully, these three days of rest will allow me to tackle the weekend's long (but not Big) runs with a happier foot. 

Why long but not Big runs, I hear you ask?  Because after last week's total of 45 miles, I am now officially tapering.  Two weeks and one day to go.

Huh.  Pretty much like training, then.

Reading the signs (incorrectly, as it turns out)

This time in three weeks, I will (hopefully) be more than half-way through the 100k London2Brighton ultra marathon.  If I make it to the start line, it won't be for a lack of trying to sabotage my own efforts.  None of it has been deliberate, but an astute observer of behaviour (e.g. Ben, Adam, Bassman, Cathy, all of my colleagues in Shetland) might suspect that there has been an unconscious process at work that is designed to make me DNS this race.  Here's what has been happening in the past five weeks:

A combination of the Cough from Hell, a too-tight band on my sports bra, and a mobile phone in the wrong pocket of my hydration vest meant that I ended up with bruised ribs following the JMW ultra.  I couldn't take a deep breath without feeling like I was being stabbed so, not surprisingly, running hurt.  A lot.  I still can't lie flat or on my side, but as of last week I am able to breathe normally again whilst upright.  Hurrah!

Eleven days after the JMW Ultra, I whacked my left foot into a heavy plastic boot tray in the flat where I was staying in Shetland.  I had been hitting my foot into it all week and even said to myself at one point, 'You're going to break a toe on that if you're not careful!'  But did I think to move it to where it wasn't in the way?  I did not.  Did I break a toe?  Thankfully not, according to my x-ray, but the pain felt like every other broken toe that I've had and my poor toe was given a diagnosis of 'bruised and traumatised'.  I missed almost two weeks of running, and was convinced that L2B was not going to happen.  Three weeks and a bit on from the injury, it still hurts to walk in my bare feet but as long as I wear shoes with firm soles and keep my toe buddy-strapped to its neighbour, running is possible.  In fact, it hurts less to run than it does to walk and last weekend's 2 hours on Saturday and 3.5 hours on Sunday did it no harm. 

A week and a half after the toe injury, I whacked my traumatised toe into a piece of furniture at our friend Richard's house.  A day or so later, on the same piece of furniture, I did it a second time.  When we got back home, I managed to drop a torch, complete with batteries, onto my poorly toe.  Lots of pain, lots of tears, but my toe seems to have survived.

And just yesterday, I stepped into a patch of nettles with my bare right foot (don't even ask how this came to pass), leaving me with a rash and pain that's still there today, and then dropped my Kindle, pointed edge first, onto the top of the same bare right foot.  The bruise overlaps the nettle rash.  Lovely.  Just lovely.

Coming so close to not being able to start the L2B race made me realise how terrified I am of doing this.  There was a very large part of me that hoped that my rib pain and traumatised toe meant that I would have to pull out, and I was entirely okay with this.  Running (well, running/walking/shuffling/whingeing/crying) 100k seems utterly impossible and I didn't want to even try.  An injury would be the perfect excuse to stay in my comfort zone.

Cue Coach Ben.  After a particularly extensive whinge (me, not him) along the lines of 'I HATE EVERYTHING AND I QUIT,' he provided lots of encouragement but, more importantly, gave me a kick up the backside.  'Stop faffing and stop trying to find excuses.  You ARE going to do this so you need to commit to it and just get on with the running.'  Or something like that.  It was what I needed to hear and it bumped me out of my self-pitying mode.  While I am still terrified and still can't imagine how I will be able to keep going for 100k (and am still dropping things on my feet), I'm back to (kind of) looking forward to it and trying to remember to see it as a grand adventure.

It's been along time since I've done something that really scares me, and one of the reasons that I wanted to run 100k was to step outside of my comfort zone and really challenge myself again.  I just didn't appreciate how very very far outside of my comfort zone this was going to turn out to be!

Reflections on the JMW Ultra

It has taken me almost a week to properly come to terms with my first ultra experience.  For the first couple of days, I felt quite despondent about the whole thing.  It hadn't been fun, there had been parts that I actively despised, and I was back to being one of the slowest runners.  And as for running twice that distance in two months?  Ridiculously out of the question.

However, encouraging (and sensible) words from Bassman, Adam, and various friends and a lengthy post-race discussion with Ben all helped me to put things into perspective and I am feeling more positive now about what I achieved.  I'm very good at identifying what didn't go well, most of which I laid out in the last post, so for a change, here are the good things:

• I didn't cry, even though I wanted to.
• It never crossed my mind to DNF.  Not once.
• I kept moving, even if that pace was just a slow walk. 
• I ran the whole race without my iPod.  If my fingers hadn't been frozen, I might have taken it out of my pocket but as it was, I learned that I can comfortably be in my own head for that length of time.
• Even without the iPod, the time passed really quickly.  I might have been shattered, but I wasn't bored.
• I enjoyed the chats that I had with fellow runners.

And most importantly, I finished with my legs feeling in relatively good shape.  They were stiff and aching immediately afterwards, as one would expect them to be, but within 48 hours all of that had pretty much disappeared.  72 hours post-race, I did a 30-minute recovery run that felt fine.  My post-race massage with Adam was uneventful, with only a slightly tight right calf and lateral hamstring to show for my efforts.  This is a recovery week so the only other run that I have is 60 minutes tomorrow, and I'm certainly feeling ready for it.  Of all of the positives that I could possibly have hoped for from this race, rapidly recovering legs is the best positive of all.

The area where I need to make improvements is hydration and nutrition.  I didn't drink enough and I certainly didn't take on enough calories and, while I did not hit The Wall, this certainly contributed to my lack of energy in the later miles.  Ben thinks that I need to reverse my nutrition strategy and rather than taking gels and quick acting carbs early in the run/race, save them for the later stages when I need to perk up my legs.  Instead, he's recommended eating easily digestible whole foods in the earlier stages when my digestion is still working reasonably efficiently.  He suggested the cookbook Feed Zone Portables, which is recipes for little bites.  I'm willing to give it a go, although I'm more nervous about cooking than I am about running 100k.

Ben said that although London2Brighton will be harder physically, he is confident that it will be much easier mentally because the conditions underfoot and the weather will not be as soul-destroying as those in the JMW.  Maybe, although his track record at predicting good weather is not reassuring ('It's always brilliant weather for the Florence marathon!').  But even if it does turn out to be shit weather, at least I've had a lot of experience at not giving up in the face of it.

I still can't imagine being able to run 2x50k but for at least today, I'm back to being willing to try.