Goal Shoals

Well, I hope I'm not tempting fate in saying this, but now my foot is feeling oh so slightly better, I feel like planning some goals for the next year or so. Something to aim towards, because not having goals currently is making me do sweet FA!

I've finished the first course of Prexige and am now onto Voltaren three time a day for a couple of weeks. I can feel the injury a little bit more again (thinking it's because voltaren isn't as strong) so I'm not counting my chickens just yet but it would just be nice to have something to daydream about when I'm driving myself nuts watching everyone else do all the big races!

I was supposed to do the 5km TT yesterday morning and slept in, so this morning I went to Mt.Cootha and did 45 minutes on the trails. Bit of a rush because I have to go and take my exhibition down today. Walked a fair bit. As I was run/walking, I was thinking that perhaps Six Foot might be a good training goal. I'm thinking I'll need at the very least, a solid six month lead up (which is going to mean training through the hot weather, argh!) but as long as my injury continues to improve, it's a realistic idea. Gives me a few months just to come good, then I can kick in to it properly.

I'd also like to do the 24km GH run at the end of july and then (all being well!) the 30km in september (what happened to the 50k option?) I want to regain a bit of confidence in my ability to do the distance. Amazing how much you can take that for granted.

I'm still not quite sure about the Queensland Half next weekend. It's a bit scary because it's such a jump in distance from what I have been reduced to. The last three or four weeks at least, I've run nothing longer than about 10km. I don't know whether I should just skip it, do the 10km (though it'll kill me to be there and not do the half!) or pace the 2:30 group again with Ronnie.

What other goals should I have for the next year or so? (other than 100 miles next year!)

Glasshouse 11km

Well, it was good to be back at Glasshouse. Even if it was really bizarre to be doing the short event. Felt a bit sad I wasn't able to have a crack at the 80km, which was one of my previous goals for the year. Anyway, I'm sure all this complete and utter frustration will push me to train harder once I'm able. Look out, next year!

Linda and I ran the 11km in about 1:10 I think. Foot felt okay, though started to twinge and swell half way through. (aren't I glad I didn't have a crack at 30km? I almost did - wouldn't have made it to 20km) Very strange to feel soooo unfit whilst out there - I remember just being able to keep on going. Not that GH is ever easy, but all this has certainly made me appreciate being able to stumble along consistently for hours like I could.

Oh and add to that the fact that just as I came off the trail onto the last 100m of tarmac, I managed to full on kick a tree root with my bad foot!

$%&*#&$ !!

(well, I don't think I was as polite as that!) Stuck my foot in the icy cold pool for 20 minutes then again when it started to throb and now seems not to be too bad again, but tomorrow will tell no doubt.

Really good to catch up with a few familiar faces. Tanky absolutely decimated her 80km. I think she said she did it 2 hours faster than last year! Vegie did the 30km with Di and came in looking fresh as a daisy. I got a text from Susannah saying she came 12 th Female (out of two hundred!) in the Great Wall of China Marathon. That girl is absolutely phenomenal! Inspirational :) I'm sure she could make it on the Aussie ultra team if she wanted.

A new week and back to work tomorrow :( Can't believe how quickly my two weeks off went! Tentative plans for the week:

Mon: Circuit training a.m + 5km walk/run
Tues: Track session
Wed: PT session a.m, Club run p.m
Thurs: 5km walk/run
Fri: Circuit training a.m
Sat: 5km TT a.m + 1:30 (?) hour run
Sun: REST

The saturday long run will vary depending on how my foot holds up, as will the 5km runs on monday and thursday.

Hope everyone that went to Warwick had a fab time. I really missed it! Next time, Gadget!

Ahhhhhh (that was a good sigh, for a change)

I'm hoping I'm not going to jinx myself here when I say this but I can't help it.

MY FOOT FINALLY FEELS A BIT BETTER!

Praise the running gods, I think the anti-inflammatories are starting to work! I have been taking 200mg of Prexige (lumiracoxib) twice a day. Once I finish that, I move to Voltaren for a bit. All things being well, I may well be on the mend! I wish I'd had the brains to just go and see my favourite running doctor when it first happened. The real test will be when I finish all the tablets I guess but right now I'm just enjoying being almost pain free!

I didn't realise just how much this injury really hurt and how constant the pain was, until it started to feel better. My general mood is so much better too - as I'm sure everyone around me will agree, it was all starting to make me very, very cranky. Sleeping heaps better too.

It is sooo unbelievably nice to be able to walk around without pain and not to have to favour one side of my foot as much. To be able to stretch and point my toes in bed without wincing.
I can still feel the injury, but it's heaps better and I feel rather like a new woman today!

So much so, that I think I will go and run a sedate 11k at GH with Uncle Phil, tomorrow. It's apparently not as hard as previous ones, I have new shoes and it's not on concrete so I feel relatively happy to give it a go!

So good to see a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel :)

Progress....

So, went off to see my favourite running doc this morning for a fresh perspective. He thinks I have torn the ligament where it joins the bone in the ball of my foot. Ties in to what Uncle Phil thinks too.

So now I have two new types of anti-inflams to take but if that doesn't fix it, looks like cortisone injection and a trip to the specialist might be in order. Blah! I'm really hoping the drugs do it. If they do, I might be back to normal in a couple of weeks! Hurrah!

So good to be made to feel like I'm not going crazy and it's not all in my head. The doc was soooo fabulous, I think he might be stuck with me from now on - he even gave me his mobile and home phone number incase I have any problems! Certainly beats the various levels of disdain the rest of the doctors I've tried have displayed.

Fingers are crossed!

7km

Got my new shoes tonight. They are bouncy :) Alas, my foot hurt after 3km tonight. Managed 6 or 7kms with the beginners again.

Today I began the four times a day icing and rubbing. Also bought some anti-inflam gel to see if that helps matters. Spoke to our resident running doc at the club and am going to go and see him. I think it can only be a good thing to see a doctor who runs.... may shed some light on matters. At this stage, I'm desparate enough to try just about anything!

Because I have not much else to say, here's another pic from Australia Zoo. I think this one was a king brown. I would really like not to ever meet one of these guys without there being a sheet of perspex between us. Beautiful, but nasty!

Track

I went back to track last night. Managed about half a session I think. Uncle Phil finally succumbed to the vast amount of whinging I've been doing about my foot and poked and prodded it for me. Something is clicking in it and the tendon is swollen. I actually have really loose joints - my shoulders and hips partially dislocate quite often. It sounds revolting but it doesn't hurt too badly because I put them back into place as soon as I feel them start to go. If that's what happened to my foot, it makes sense that it didn't show on the xray or scan or anything.

Anyway, I am now on orders to ice it four times a day for three days, see how it goes, then we'll try alternating with really hot and then really cold water for another few days. Fingers are crossed! I have to say I accidentally banged it on a door jam today and it would be an understatement to say the air turned blue!

On the plus side. I went to Australia Zoo yesterday and got to eyeball a tiger. And I mean really EYEBALL a tiger. He walked right up to me and stared me in the eyes. There would've been perhaps six inches between our noses. It was bloody incredible :)

Here's the pick I took as he turned away. I was too stunned and too busy looking at him to press the button whilst we had eye contact!


Tomorrow night I'm running again. Currently I'm thinking I will go to Glasshouse and run the 12km with Uncle Phil. I just don't trust myself to make it through 30km currently and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bung foot.

Another positive - I'm buying new shoes tomorrow!

10km + MDC 8km

On thursday I did a PT session and got my butt kicked by my trainer for being crap with my food again. Hopefully it will inspire me to improve. I'm going back on Lite n Easy at the end of the week after cancelling it in a fit of irritation at myself for wasting money on it when I was cheating anyway.

On friday I went back to circuit training which was good. Nice to be back and there was a huge rainbow afterwards. The mosquitos were shocking though - apparently there is a swarm of salt marsh mossies in the area that have flown down from sandgate that been causing problems. Having pommie blood, I am a beacon for them, aerogard or no!

On saturday, my foot still felt okay, so I went out and ran 10km on the nearby bikepath. Hard work. I think you know you're unfit when 10km seems a long way again! LOL! After that, I went to a 50th Birthday party and my foot throbbed the whole way through. I wore flats, but still drove me nuts. Got to bed at 1am.

Today, I did the MDC 8km. Was rudely awoken by the lovely Ronnie banging on my front door - I had slept in! I hate doing that - of course I bolted around my unit throwing clothes on and grabbing stuff. I must've been in a deep sleep, since I answered the door practically naked! Poor Ronnie! Anyway, managed to get myself together and fell into the car half asleep still, putting socks and shoes on and timing chip.

Arrived at the start, went to the loo and then before I knew it we were off. I knew the minute we started running that I was going to feel it. My thighs were fatigued from yesterday and I thought I might have to walk. Eventually I fell into a rhythym though and kept going. I really wanted not to have to walk... would be really depressing not to be able to complete 18km in a weekend. This time last year, I did 42km in a weekend at Warwick without batting an eyelid (okay, well, I was buggered, but I did it). Anyway, no use dwelling on that!

Bumped into the lovely tanky on the way back and had a brief chat. I've missed all the races and ultras so much and I think a large part of that is the people - they rock. By that point in the run, my foot was really starting to hurt and I felt like shit. Tanky dropped back to walk with her parents and I carried on.

The finish chute was absolute bedlam. To be completely honest, I've never yet experienced a good USM event. The poor volunteers were overwhelmed - we got herded into the finishing area, packed in like sardines. It took me over 20 minutes just to reach water. Mostly I think it was because the race packs weren't assembled so people were picking up bits and pieces from tables along the way, taking ages to move. Again, the volunteers were doing a great job and there were apparently 1000 more entrants than they expected, but USM really should have made the water tables easier to access. It's not just inconvenient not to be able to get to water, but dangerous. At those events, most of the people running don't normally run and they need to drink. As did I ;) If it had been hotter, I imagine they'd have had to start pulling people out over the barricades, like at a rock concert!

Anyway, that's my grumble for the day. I did get a funky pink water bottle too. Once I got clear of the madness, I discovered my foot was really really REALLY unhappy with me again and limped back to the car. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow because I'd like to either do circuit training or the social run at sandgate. Or both. But we shall see. If it's this bad tomorrow, I will be happy just to walk normally!

B L A H

So, last night I went to track for the first time in ages.... to watch :( Not a good move since it made me feel like kicking my !*%$*#(% dodgy, crappy IRRITATING GODDAMN FOOT against the wall repeatedly. I am sooooo soooo soooooo bloody frustrated, I cannot express how pissed off I am with being injured. It's ridiculous. This has been going on for more than 3 months now and watching everyone whizz around last night made me think about how unfit I am now and that I'm drifting away from all those goals :( Seeing all the events coming up that I was going to do isn't helping either.

Seems the hills at Mount Cootha don't agree with whatever it is that's still not mended. I'm doing my best to ignore it and just run on it anyway, but I'm a little scared to go all out and sprint on it at track incase something snaps or pops or otherwise. I think it's safe to say after ten days of max dose, the anti-inflams are doing absolutely nothing to make it any better.

Perhaps I should just sprint on it and see what happens. I seem to be playing a game of chicken with myself currently... seeing how far I'll push things before I lose my nerve.

BLAH.

Anyway, I know it's not the end of the world. I just want to get back to training and having some goals to work towards. I feel (and look!) like a blimp currently.

Mount Cootha 1:50

Yesterday I met Sam and Jill for the usual run up Mount Cootha. It's been a while since I did the regatta loop and so I was a bit worried I would have to walk the entire thing or that I would have to turn back.

I did a fair amount of walking, perhaps four bursts. Half way up I bumped into Deb from BRRC and we ran the rest of the way together which was good. Nice to have some company for the hills. Then she turned down a different road and I ran past Tori with her Tri squad on their way up.

I got back to the Regatta and found I'd run it in 1:50, which is exactly the time I do when I run the whole thing without stopping. Very bizarre. I must have been running quicker when I did run, or walking faster or something but I was just happy not to have taken three hours! My foot hurts a bit after it - sore to wiggle my big toe up or down. I think hills agravate it.

After the run, I met the girls back for Breakfast and Schultzy rocked up after a run and joined us. Last night, I had my art exhibition opening which went fairly well I think. Loads of people came which was nice, including the lovely Tesso. The show is up for almost a month though, so I think some people will look at it during the coming weeks.

This morning, I met Sam and we went for a walk through the park near where the both of us live. My hips were a bit stiff from Cootha, but nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be. I've got the next two weeks off from work so I'm planning to catch up on lots of blogs, read, eat, sleep and run a lot.