More snakes than ladders...

In the last week, I've been chomping at the bit. Those words, "Don't run before our next appointment" haunted me. Within a few days my knee felt good, I was tentatively trying it out up stairs and in short sprints across the road. I knew it was better, but I was good, and I waited for my appointment.

Some more massage, and a chat about running plans led to further horror: "I think you should leave it another few days, and perhaps go for a short run at the start of next week." Really? Did he not realise that I was all fixed and ready to run miles and miles and miles and miles? Did he not know that I had a two half marathons in the next seven weeks?

100% accurate representation of how I felt.

What he perhaps did know, or have an inkling of, was that I wasn't fixed.

He gave me a plan: two short, gentle runs this week. I figured if I did the first on Monday, and the second on Wednesday, then I might be able to sneak another one in on Saturday if everything went well. So it was that, full of excitement, and slightly scared, I was dressed in that sexy fluorescent yellow once again. I decided upon a nice little three mile loop that I knew well.

It was great! Well - the first mile was. No pain at all, just a nice mile completed in nine minutes. I was chuffed, and started to work out how I would add the mileage back in to get me up to a decent distance for the Bath Half. Then my knee started to ache. Then my knee started to ache more. Then my knee started to ache really quite badly. Then I stopped. I'd completed two miles, and I practically hobbled the third mile home.

Stairs are once again my nemesis, merely standing causes unreasonable discomfort. I still have a vague hope that I might be able to get out for a short run later this week, but if I do, it might be on a one mile loop! More likely, I'm going to give my leg a decent rest, and reassess things in a week or so. If I can persuade myself to be that patient. In the mean time, I'm going to have to live vicariously through my wife's running: wonder if she fancies a ten miler at the weekend, I know a really good route...

Back in the Physio's Room

Ah. My running of the past few years has come full circle. A persistent knee injury in late 2012 brought a spell of regular running to a halt, and resulted in a lengthy spell of physiotherapy and rehabilitation. I've seen my physioregularly since for sports massage, but last week was the first time I'd been back to see him for an injury. And really, it was probably all my own stupid fault...

As I mentioned in my last post, I didn't get much running done over Christmas: a bug struck me down for a couple of weeks. Prior to that, I'd been running pretty well: three Sunday long runs in excess of 10 miles, and plenty of variety in there too. Over the Christmas/New Year fortnight, I ran a parkrun on Christmas Day, another ten days later, and then a 10 mile run the day after that. And that, as they say, was that.

The 10 miler was actually alright: I felt pretty good on it, took it at a pretty gentle pace, and actually enjoyed the run. For the rest of the day though, my knees made it well known that they hadn't enjoyed the run. Stairs were not fun, carrying my daughter around was not fun, and carrying my daughter up the stairs: ha! In the evening, I had a short session with the foam roller to try and sort things out:

Right. I give in. My knees (and legs in general) have been complaining all day. Foam roller of death it is. I blame you @SomersetPhysio.
— Ben Timmo (@bentimmo) January 4, 2015

In retrospect, I clearly should have eased back into things a little more: if I'd had time off because of a niggle, I would have done. But with it being a spot of illness, I didn't really think about it. And... if this was my only sin, I'd probably be back running again already. What followed... was sheer idiocy.

Time and time again, both within my club, and generally through Twitter and running magazines, I've been told that you should steer clear of speed-work if you have even the inkling of an injury.

Time and time again, both within my club, and generally though Twitter, I advise people with an injury or discomfort to either rest completely, or to do a gentle recovery-style run.

Medicinal peas!

So, on Monday, with sore knees that still strongly disliked stairs, I must surely have rested, or gone for a nice plod along the canal, right? No, of course not. Like a complete lunatic I went to a club track session. I completed, I think, 8 laps of the track. Although that somewhat overstates how much I ran: two warm-up laps, five laps of the session, and then one "is this as bad as.... ARGHHHHH, yes it is" lap. That last lap was taken at a very slow jog, for about 150 metres, before even that was too painful, and I made do with an awkward hobble.

On Tuesday, I went to work, pumped full of a combination of painkillers that I found in our medicine drawer: things were not looking good for getting back out again that week.

On Wednesday, I felt sorry for myself.

On Thursday, I felt sorry for myself.

On Friday, I continued to feel sorry for myself, but also decided to do something about it. I managed to secure an appointment later that same day to see my physio. Part of me had been quite scared about taking this step. My rehab from my previous knee problem had taken months, and I couldn't really bear to consider that this could take a similar length of time. Of course, looking back, I have to admit that I wasn't very... assiduous at completing my daily exercises.

And so, on Friday afternoon, I found myself back in the physio's room. After ascertaining exactly where the pain was, and which movements triggered it, and which did not, I received an ITB massage. Generally, I get on fine with sports massage: while plenty of people complain about them, I don't find them too painful. An ITB massage though, that hurts. Still, I left with instructions to massage the ITB with my foam roller, a set of exercises to complete each day. Oh, and those horrible words "Don't run before our next appointment."

I made our next appointment for as soon as I could.

Christmas lurgy and getting going again

So, like many, I had an unintended lull in my training over Christmas due to a horrible cough/cold combo. I'd always planned to drop the mileage a little, but in the last two weeks, I've done 17 miles. That doesn't sound too bad, you might think, but 13.1 of those miles were done this weekend! I missed two races that I'd been looking forward to over the Christmas period: I hadn't signed up for the Stoke Stampede, but probably would have done on the day, while the Chard Flyer on New Year's Day I had paid for. Still, I really didn't have any choice in the matter, so there is no use getting too annoyed about it. Though it does mean that I probably won't run a 10k road race for over 6 months: my last was at the end of September, and my next scheduled is the start of April.

Yes Strava... a "rest".

My focus now switches to my spring half marathons. In the three weeks before Christmas, my long runs were all just over 10 miles, and I was averaging well over 20 miles a week. I set a parkrun PB at the start of November, and a road 5k PB in early December, so I know that despite this little setback, I'm running pretty well. My focus in the next few weeks is making my long runs long, maintaining a good variety of runs, and strengthening work. I don't know when I'll fit the last in, because it's something I've never scheduled in, and always the first thing to get dropped if I have other things to do. (And with a 15-month-old daughter, there are always other things to do!)

I've avoided the temptation of the "review" blog for the most part: suffice to say that I easily hit all of my targets for last year, and my targets for the year going forward aren't really set. I have a few things in mind, but to be honest, I don't know how quickly I can improve. My focus is going to be on running well, and racing fun. Yes, I want that 10k PB, I want that half-marathon PB. I definitely want to go sub-20 for 5k. But I want to try more trail races, some odd distances, some hilly races. I'm hoping to get out and do a fair number of races in the Somerset Series: they're local, and generally pretty reasonably priced. There are generally a few people I know at each, and they offer the variety that I'm after.