Monday, March 19, 2007

Getting Fit…. again

Time left until the big day: 1 month 2 days 16 hours and 10minutes
State of mind:………………………..

Despite the current snowfall, hail and horizontal wind guts, I feel great for having achieved as much as I did over the course of last week. I am still suspicious though for having an effect on the UK weather what with me running. The weather was perfectly spring wise prior to me starting again. I even spotted that if you type in “weather forecast hindhead friday” in google - click here to check and you will see my blog is ranked 5 or 6!

Nevertheless, I managed to run 6 times in 7 days and slowly building up distance. On top of that, I decided to add swimming to the regime. Last Saturday was the first time I went and I entered my local swimming pool with the objective to swim for at least 30 minutes.

10 minutes in and I finally had my bathing suit on… Geez, I am really not sure they are supposed to be that tight. All was not helped by the fact the changing rooms are not exactly build to accommodate tall people…so 15 minutes later and I finally entered the pool spotting three more bruises as well as a tight fitting suit…

Still full of positive intention, I started swimming laps. The pool is a small one and each lap was a mere 25 metre. I wish I could say the tightness of my suit had something to do with the fact I could barely finish four of these. I had to stop, I was breathless, I never realised swimming was so tough! After 15 minutes in the pool, I lost count of the number of laps I had done and noticed the lifeguard started to eye me sceptically as if he suspected me to be his next drowning victim. It might have been the fact that my breathing had turned into a loud and obnoxious gasping for air sound. I reckon I managed about 700 meters (28 laps) but that is a very rough guess indeed.

When I left the pool I nearly fell down (my legs were not up to carrying my body anymore…apparently). It was like this movie with Bridget Jones when she was on the exercise bike and stepped off. That was me leaving the pool on Saturday. I was back in the pool on Sunday though doing 32 laps!

I am leaving for Ecuador in two days, which is not greatly timed with the marathon just around the corner, but with all the climbing, trekking and other activities it is not going to do me any harm I figured. The coast has a reported 90% humidity (YES!!!!), and 30-degree weather might even do me good! Worst-case scenario I fail finishing the marathon tanned!

Best wishes and speak/chat soon

PS They say Ecuador is very internet oriented..guess I (and you) will find out ;-)

Friday, March 09, 2007

Hurray!

Time left until the big day: 1 month 13 days 16 hours and 6 minutes
State of mind: …HURRAY (probably temporarily, knowing myself)

OK so pretty excited today and I for one never expected to say that after I successfully spent in excess of £200 on therapies and new sporting gear!

Thing is, I (finally) had a proper analysis on how I run – they call it gait analysis. The reason I decided to go see a physiotherapist was to find the cause of my persistent knee problems that kept me from proper training.

I had, in the misery of not training, convinced myself it was either Chondromalacia (Runners Knee) or Iliotibial Band Syndrome (I-T). Both very common knee injuries, but am glad to say that is not the case!

I showed no sign of either injury, although the pain I experienced was very similar. But no, I am irregular, unbalanced and crooked! Well that is to say my running is….;-) So why the Hurray I hear you say… well for one it is nice to be different, but that is besides the case, it means it is (in most cases) easily fixed!

Now that I know I am a person, whose feet, ankles and kneecaps live a rather twisted life when left to their own devices, all I need to do is fix it– i.e. new shoes! So that’s what I did today – got myself a nice pair of shining new trainers made for people like me (apparently there are others out there with similar problems ;-).

Special thanks to Karen from footmechanix for doing the whole thing and advising me what shoes to buy! With roughly 5 weeks to go (whenever I write that I do get nervous!) everything is still very possible.

Somehow the chorus of this song of Paolo Nutini suddenly makes sense…;-)

To Listen to it click here
Chorus goes like this...Hey, I put some new shoes on, and suddenly everything is right, I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling, it so inviting,

Take care all!

AZ

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Oh boy....

My blog has not been updated for a while and I wish I could say it was only my blog that missed any action.

However, I am afraid to say I have been injured! Now that sound svery serious indeed, but truth is I have knee problems - well left knee that is. So I haven't run for two weeks and only just getting back into it.

Because I have not been running - I need to build it up again very slowly to also avoid any more problems with my knee. Ice is the key word here I have been told by experts. So after every run I am wrapping my knee in a towel I have put (permanently) in the freezer.

Needless to say I am pissing my pants what with the Marathon less than 2 months from away! What was I thinking is a recurring though most frequently thought at 4am in the morning having just woken up...

Friends assure me I will be fine - coincidentally these friends never have run a marathon before. At the least the weather is kinda better again with the spring showing for milliseconds at a time. Unfortunately not yet whilst I was running.

Ta for now...

AZ