Running - AnnaTheApple

January 16, 2014

I’ve been cheating

So I have a bit of a confession to make. I’ve been cheating…

On my physio.

I started seeing my physio (technically osteopath) in December when I decided to stop running and sort my knee out. She saw me every week and worked with me in helping me ‘re-align’ my knee and sorted my trainers to stop my feet from continuing to over pronate (causing my knees to sink inwards and lean to my right side).

She allowed me to run a few 1 milers and 2 miles. But after standing around watching Ben’s marathon just before Christmas my knee just felt terrible. It was like things were exactly as they were before December. I started to despair. There was a tightness in my whole right leg that was awful. All the way from my lower back to my knee. And my IT band was started to rear it’s ugly head again.

ARE YOU JOKING?

Don’t get me wrong. I think my osteopath is excellent. She offered me some quick 10 minute freebie ultra sounds a few times a week for two weeks. She’s just down the corridor at work so it’s been perfect. And my knee was feeling better. But the tightness was still there.

So I cheated. I went and saw Ben’s physio for a second opinion last week. A fresh set of eyes if you will. [And obviously I have a money tree in my back garden (ha!).]

I stressed the tightness in my right leg, specifically my IT band. He straight away looked at my back. Apparently the whole right side of my back, specifically lower back, is really tight in comparison to my left (interestingly, this is the exact same thing my PT said to me). The tightness in my back and tightness in my glute and hip pulls all the way down my IT band and tugs at my knee.

Apologies for my amateur line drawing!

I then had the most painful back massage known to man. But the release in tension was unbelievable.

I’ve seen him twice and have another appointment tomorrow and next Tuesday. But I’ve also been continuing to see my osteopath for the ultra sound (which will be stopping tomorrow – to be honest my knee feels 98% good).

The problem is, this physio advised no running. My osteopath advised running 2 miles every couple of days. And I’ve been lying to her saying I have been running 🙁

Oh the web of lies that I’ve become entangled in!

I know, I know. Terrible. But I can’t throw back her treatment at her when she’s been so helpful to me and provided free treatment when she really didn’t have to. She’s definitely helped reduce the inflammation and the ‘bottom-up’ side of the problem from my feet. But the new physio seems to be working more on the cause of the tightness I’m feeling rather than just focusing on the knee.

End of the story is…my new physio has allowed me to START RUNNING SUNDAY! My knee discomfort is pretty much gone and the tightness has hugely improved.

Incidentally, I may be fixed physically but financially I’m now broke 😉

Fingers crossed that marathon training begins Monday.

Have you ever sort out a second opinion?

Do you get back pain or tightness? I wouldn’t say I had pain, but the tightness is very uncomfortable.

**Also, BIG thank you for bearing with me on this, I know my injury posts can’t be that exciting. I really appreciate all your good advice and well wishing**

November 28, 2013August 24, 2016

Injury update and the plank challenge continues

Hey guys. Well I certainly feel more positive now.

I saw my physio yesterday and she checked my knee out, bending and moving it, watching me squat and walk on the spot. Thankfully there’s no structural damage. Whew! Apparently my knee cap is moving slightly to one side when I bend it and this causes friction and discomfort.

She massaged my leg and then ultra sounded the affected area to treat the inflammation. She said I was definitely doing the right thing not doing the marathon. It’s a huge undertaking on a healthy body, let alone one that’s a big niggly like mine at the moment. But she said I should be fine for the Paris marathon. In fact she was very confident I’d be more than OK by January.

I’m going back to her next week for another session and she told me not to run in the meantime. To be honest, I am so focused on repairing myself and wanting to do well next year that I’m OK with that. Yes it’s rubbish, but I’ve got the bigger picture in my mind.

I am fully aware that when I properly getting back into running in January I will be slower. Long runs will be harder. But I have a base fitness and muscle memory, which I will try and maintain through regularly rowing, bike work and lots of strength training. Let’s be honest, I have years ahead of me to work on PBs 😉

Source

The plank challenge is getting very real over here. I am now able to do a 5min 15second plank. I can’t even believe it!! I now have to have music to get me through. I made Ben film me as I was convinced people (my fellow plank challengers at work) wouldn’t believe me. I probably won’t put that on the blog as, let’s be honest, it’s a pretty boring video!! Ben got a bit narked just sat there filming as well haha.

He did get on board though and did a 2min 30second plank as well. I am seriously impressed.

Amazingly my dad also attempted the plank challenge. Bless him, he’s not fit at all and has continually battled with his weight. So imagine my surprise when he managed a full one minute plank!!

I’m so proud of him. He said he felt muscles working that he didn’t even know he had!

And in the spirit of November almost at an end…here is what my lovely husband currently looks like with his Movember attempt.

Yep, that’s the man I married and love. The Mexican porn star lookalike. God help me.

Physiotherapist, osteopath or chiropractor – have you seen any? Technically my physio is an osteopath, I fully trust her opinion and guidance and she knows my running history.

Has anyone you know been affected by the Movember epidemic? I can’t wait for December…

Have you take time off running or a specific exercise what was it like getting back into it?

November 4, 2013November 4, 2013

Cake and 17 miles

Happy Monday! I can’t believe we’re into November. Crazy!

This weekend was jam-packed. On Friday night Ben and me went out for our running club Christmas meal. It was so funny seeing everyone wearing their normal clothes, their hair done and without a drop of sweat on them! We usually just see everyone for a race or at the running club.

We enjoyed a very tasty Indian buffet. No photos, but basically I had a lot of chicken tikka (my favourite), butter chicken, salmon (I’ve never had salmon in a curry before!) and vegetable curry. Mmmm, with lots of poppadums.

Then there was the cake!

Amazing. And it was made by one of the ladies at the club. It was very tasty but we only had very small slice. I’ve become a bit too accustomed to having huge slices of cake or multiple slices…so this was a little disappointing. I know, I’m just being greedy!!

Saturday morning came a little too quickly for my liking. I ran to Parkrun nice and easily:

Then we lined up for the actual Parkrun. Running to Parkrun my stomach was not feeling good – the Indian was not happy bouncing away in there! But I wanted to give it my best as I’m so aware of the lack of speed sessions I’ve been incorporating to my routine.

I found the run quite tough and even though it was on the flat course (PB potential) I just couldn’t maintain a decent enough pace to get anywhere near my PB.

A bit disappointing but, let’s be honest, very much expected. What with my annoying niggles and no speed sessions, getting back to my speedier times will take some work. But at the moment my main focus is the marathon. 5k times will just have to be side-lined for now.

Saturday evening Ben and me headed to my sister’s and brother-in-law’s for dinner. It was lovely seeing Ellie and Megan, my nieces, and also just having a good old chin-wag. My brother-in-law, Nick, made an amazing meal. Hungarian goulash from none other than my favourite chef, Jamie Oliver.

Very tasty. This was very easily finished off! And then pudding was a slice of Bakewell tart with salted caramel ice cream and a dollop of what I can only describe as toffee trifle (…because let’s be honest, when is one pudding really enough??). I thought it best not to take a photo purely because I’m not sure I want to remember quite what a pig I was…

The next morning Ben left early to get in 5 miles and then left for a 10 mile race (he had a 15 mile long run on the plan). I had decided not to sign up to the race purely because I needed to get 17 miles in and though I could have done something similar to Ben I wanted to make sure it was a consistent pace and non-stop. I couldn’t trust myself to not be stupid and race the 10 miles and then hamper my following training week.

I was very jealous But I got in my 17 miler.

I tried to keep my pace slow and easy as I’ve never run this far before. And though I have done 16 miles in a day, there were gaps in between as I sandwiched in a half marathon race in the middle.

Overall it went OK. Annoyingly I had decided not to take my gloves as it didn’t look too cold. But then the wind picked up and it started raining and my hands were freezing. Around mile 10 I stopped quickly at a shop to buy a drink and I couldn’t get my fingers to open my bum pocket. They were so numb. I must have looked ridiculous desperately trying to unzip the pocket without success. Thankfully I did manage in the end.

When I got home I literally laid on the living room floor for a bit. I was shattered. I ~~enjoyed~~ endured an ice bath after my lovely hot shower and I screamed the house down. In the summer it was so refreshing (sort of) and now it’s like torture. For the rest of the day I pretty much moved in slow motion.

Clearly I need my body to get used to running such long distances. I’m not too concerned because I remember when I was training for my first half marathon and how I was after my first 9 miler. I remember feeling exhausted. It’s just about what your body is used to.

For the rest of the day I watched the New York City Marathon, read some magazines and just chilled. Perfect.

What did you get up to this weekend?

What’s the furthest you’ve ever run? And what’s the most comfortable distance for your body?

If you could choose any sort of food for a buffet, what would it be? Indians are very tasty but it’s a lot of spicy food!

November 1, 2013

My Marathon Training Plan

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiday, where have you been all my ~~life~~ week? And tonight is quite exciting because Ben and me are off out to our running club Christmas meal (shhh, I know it’s only just November – it’s all about dragging Christmas out in my eyes).

This week I’ve been taking things a bit easier on the running front after the Great South Run to make sure I don’t over-do things. I’d love to be able to rock out stupid amounts of miles every week but unfortunately I’m not there yet. Not in this training cycle anyway.

Here’s how the upcoming weeks are looking for me for my marathon training:

There’s a great deal of flexibility though. I’m happy to move things around, reduce/increase miles, or delete workouts entirely if needs be. I like doing spin twice a week as it’s a great speed workout without the pounding on the legs (though after a hard run on Sunday I will drop my Monday one when I fancy). The workouts that I’m least likely to change though are the long runs. This is because this is a whole new territory for me. Long runs used to be 10-12 miles. Now they’re 14 miles plus. That’s scary to me at the moment – I have yet to do further than 16 miles (should I be panicking??). I’d love to have another 20 miler in there to fully boost my confidence and feel comfortable at longer distances but I just don’t have the time to recover sensibly.

Basically this is a guide of my ideal training cycle. But let’s be honest, knowing me, it is never going to work out that way. Ideally things would have gone a bit more smoothly leading up to this point due to my long-standing niggles. Thankfully though things are feeling lots better. The running coaching has definitely helped this, with improving my form and giving me the stretches and strength exercises I’ve needed.

It’s definitely been an eye opener for the stuff I haven’t been doing. Gluteal exercises for instance. Loving those bridges…they’re lots of fun. Not.

These are the top exercises and stretches I’ve been adding into my routine:

Bridges (pulsing and holding for 30 seconds)

Source [Except I don’t look as serene!]

Single leg squats (it really makes it obvious that I’m weaker on one leg)
Pendulum kickbacks
Lunges
Hip flexor stretch <—this one is a big one for me as my hips are always so tight (due to sitting 80% of the day…thank you work)

Source

So I’m trying to do these every day where I can, or every other day.

I have a few goals for this marathon in December. I’m not going to say exactly what time I’m aiming for as I’m a big believer in not trying to jinx things. Plus I really don’t know how my body is going to respond to that distance. I may need to readjust my goals after my 18 mile training run!

But I have three time goals (my ballpark vague figure that I will say is sub-four hours) and then I have a “survive it” goal and a “have fun” goal. We’ll see which ones pan out…

Have you ever run a marathon? Any tips?

When you prepare for races do you follow a plan?

Do you do a lot of strength work?

October 21, 2013May 21, 2018

Not a great start to marathon training…

So marathon training hasn’t gotten off to a great start. I’d love to say last week was filled with great runs and feeling strong and fast. Not quite.

Ages ago I mention I had a bit of a groin pain. I still felt it when I ran in Mexico and I also started to feel a discomfort in my hip on the other leg to the one I had previous ITB issues. God I sound like I’m falling apart. But I kept things very easy in Mexico and as soon as I got back I booked in a couple of sessions with my physio. I love her. She’s a blessing. Definitely sending her a Christmas card.

She worked her magic, used ultra sound, gave me a great stretch and, boom, groin pain gone.

FYI, groin issues are SO awkward to be ultra sounded. Bikini line central.

But I’m fed up. The groin thing was just a tweak. The ITB thing and my hips aching after runs are not. I’ve been hip strengthening diligently every other day and cannot believe my left leg is starting to feel like my other one did a few months ago. Seriously??!

I’ve tried to improve my form. I’ve also taken up spinning and pump.

I’m practically attached to my foam roller every idle second I get. But it seems nothing is working.

I was despairing. My body was rebelling against me. Does it really not like running? It just crumbles after a few races.

But I took a breath and decided to do something about it properly. I.e. not read haphazard advice on the Running World injury forums (the depths of hell by the way – depressing stuff).

So (and this makes me so happy and excited!) I signed up to six sessions of running technique coaching. I needed someone to look at how I run and basically fix me.

My physio can massage and stretch the pain away but she can’t help me in terms of why it’s happening. My running coach (I love that I can say that) videoed me running and watched me do different exercises to analyse how I was moving. And the observations weren’t great.

I drop my hip. My glutes aren’t firing. I over stride. My knee drops inward. My arms fly around the place. My legs don’t kick back far enough.

Then he got me working on strength exercises designed and worked with me on my running form. Honestly, I cannot begin to tell you how much I’m learning and how much I love these sessions. I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere!!

What does this mean for me and running at the moment? Well, after the half marathon last week I’ve been taking it easy on the running and letting my hip calm down. Instead, I did lots of spinning and body pump. I didn’t even do Parkrun. And my coach has me doing strength moves and stretches every day.

I just hope I’m ready or the Great South Run (10 mile race) this weekend. I’m definitely considering readjusting my goals if necessary. As much as I’d love to hit a certain time, if my hip discomfort hasn’t gone by then then it’s not worth pushing it. The GSR is one stepping stone towards the bigger goal: the marathon.

Have you ever had a running coach? It might only be for six sessions, but I’m fully loving it!

Have you had a long-standing ‘niggle’ or injury that you feel has held you back?

What’s your favourite strength move? Though they are tough, I do like planks. You just switch off and hold on.