I can be a pretty patient person but the last few days have got under my skin a little.
I'm testing and experimenting with how my body reacts while doing the rehab and conditioning work. The last week it's been one step forward one step back.
Training has been difficult. Now kids are back at school (as is my wife as a teacher) it means the household schedule is tighter. My work has just become busy with the September return to the office from our customer base and the weather has taken a steep nosedive. This all adds up to energy-sapping days, tired mornings and evenings, and requires a stoic commitment to forward progress in my training.
Test | Adapt | Overcome? It was always going to be slow progress given the injury I have. I've yet to have a nailed on explanation as to the root cause (and hope to get this later this month while seeing the Team GB Olympic Physio for some answers). This means I'm shooting in the dark a little. Training has been static. That's either some walking, or some floor work to build a little strength and condition. It's not helped struggling with time between helping the family with 'life' as well as some stressful family situations outside of my household. Life is just happening and it's feeling fractured to get what feels like consistency. A big chunk of this is probably just my own frustration that I'm not running at all. Though I did do a little treadmill test a week ago after my heel/achilles felt a lot better. This was:
10 min fast walk
1 min slow jog/1min walk for 10 mins
20 min fast walk
Hardly the stuff of ultramarathons LOL. It really does hit home how far I've fallen, and gives a sense that I am starting all over again from the very beginning. I just need to accept that some more and get on with things.
I had a little soreness around the 5/10 on the shit-that-hurts scale while jogging but that abated within 48 hrs.
The way I figured is it hurts when I rest, so may as well get some movement and load through it and help build some strength. The rest of my week training was pretty simple across two sessions:
Floor calf raises (straight and bent leg... and the bent leg ones hurt like f*ck)
Banded foot eversions
Swiss ball crunches
Banded Hamstring Curls
Swiss ball hamstring curls (tough on my weaker left leg)
Single foot glute bridges
Skater lunges
All pretty uncomfortable.
The pain generally is at a 3-4/10 on the shit-that-hurts (STH) scale during everyday walking this week. There is definitely tightness and weakness in that left leg that's noticeable. I can feel this may take some time.
I have the distinct sense that I need to control my natural urge to say 'fuck it' and just run through it. I can feel that bubbling daily, and fighting as I resist the urge to do so. Especially when on the treadmill walking to warm up as my sessions are only an RPE (Relative Perceived Effort) of about a 3/10. I know my body likes, and responds well to, high intensity. The week ahead will see me return to the spin-bike for two minute VO2 Max sessions. If nothing else, just to feel like I've done a work out. I have to be careful with these though as you put force through your feet when doing these, and I'm still learning where the edges are.
I tried to repeat last week's treadmill session yesterday and it was a shambles. I last 3 rounds of 1 minute jogging before the pain when to 7/10 on the STH Meter. Did the sensible thing and swore loudly, then stopped. It wasn't a worsening of the injury but it was definitely a 'what the holy f*ck' are you doing?' warning to me. I listened, and will take that as a positive rather than last time which saw me decide to continue to run 100Km on it. I might be crazy, but doing my best to not be stupid.
So at this point I'm frustrated, but nothing is any more broken than it was.... winning. With regards to weight loss. I'm down around 1kg from 105 to 104kg. I've been eating clean, salads 6 days a week for lunch, granola for breakfast, and a normal meal. I've been eating an apple, a banana and some grapes each day as well. Looking at the diet it's a bit light on protein. I feel like I need more than in simply lunch and dinner. I've topped up with a handful of peanuts but really need to cut that shit out of an evening, so I'm looking into some lower calorie alternatives. What I will say is that my body (and waistline) feels a little tighter. With all weight loss, it takes time before you really notice results and there is always a time lag of 3-4 weeks before you really see things start to move. I'm happy enough at this point though. Lastly I've been back to my Wim Hof breathing. That's gone very well. am now up to breath holds over 4 minutes and 30 seconds! The cold showers are back in my life and it certainly is helping during these stressful few weeks. I'll check back in next week and let you know what's happening. Thanks for reading...
Comments