Saturday 18 June 2016

Blistered Balls or a Pint of Pimm's?

The answer is probably a bit of both. More of that later.
I've been at the physio twice this week. The second time earlier than planned as the exercises I've been doing for my knee seem to be making it worse. I can still run but it's aching more. So I thought I'd ask if completely resting my knee for a few weeks would speed things up, because now is the time I can afford to take a break. I'd much rather stop to let it heal properly while it doesn't really matter than have this linger on. Anyway, the physio says that's a good idea and that I can still swim or cycle. As I don't have a bike, I'm going to swim. The rules are 'any stroke but breaststroke'.
At the moment I have my knee strapped to lift the kneecap off the tender tissue underneath. The short diagnosis is 'housemaid's knee'. At the end of next week I'm getting a brace that will do the same job to wear whilst running.
So, my break conveniently coincides with the Euro '16 football, so instead of running I can sit back and watch England crash out of the tournament. Perhaps I should run.
I say I'm having a break but I am committed to a team running event at Crystal Palace on Wednesday that I'm not going to pull out of. It's only 5k. I'll rest after that. In any case, there are beers to drink at the finish line.
So there isn't going to be much to report on for about three weeks. I'm itching to do the 15 miles I had planned for tomorrow but I know I need to play the long game. It should pay off.
My other news this week is that the good people at Great Run have agreed that I can run the Bristol half marathon dribbling my balls. This is going to be great practise as the field is around 10,000. It's exactly a week after the Copenhagen half so it's going to be a busy time. The application form for Bristol asks "Do you have an interesting story that may be of interest to the media?". I ticked that box.
I'm going swimming tomorrow, I won't bore you with the results of that.

Oh! That title! I did a few ball skills in the park this afternoon. Not quite as sharp as I would've liked. I'm not sure if it's because my balls are getting so worn they're beginning to blister or because I had a pint of Pimm's at the school summer fair. Like I said - it's probably a bit of both.
My strapped knee - that I shaved rather more of than it turns out I needed to.

Sunday 12 June 2016

Horse Poo, Rain & Soggy Jelly Babies

It's been an interesting week following Brands Hatch. On the Monday I finally got round to seeing a physio about my knee and back. I've been concerned about my right knee for a while. It doesn't bother me whilst running but it's really painful to kneel on. I wanted to get it seen to before it started impacting on my running. I'll spare you the details but it's all treatable (including my back). The only thing is, one of the many exercises she wants me to do is to run backwards for 10 minutes twice a day - as if people didn't think I was crazy enough already! I tried it out before club night on the roads around Willett's Rec. I had to run in the middle of the road as it's too dangerous trying to run backwards on the pavement. There are too many trees, posts, lumps and bumps to trip over or bump into. Obviously you have to look out for cars when you're in the middle of the road and many of them on Tuesday had fellow club runners in arriving to training. I was a laughing stock. I tried to explain this to the physio yesterday at my second appointment in the hope that she would give me an alternative exercise but I've been told to go to the park when it's quiet and do lengths on the grass. On top of this humiliation she wants me to shave my leg for next week so she can strap it.
I saw a guy running this week with a hydration pack and he had the pipe coming up under his arm so it was pointing up on his chest. I'd always had mine coming over my shoulder so the pipe ended up pointing down. I've experimented threading the tube through different ways and I've come up with a way that means I can now drink on the run. I have to stop for a second to put the pipe in my mouth but I can then carry on running whilst sipping from it. When I'm done it pings back into place (almost). It needs further practise.
I was going to run this week after I'd volunteered at Bromley Parkrun on Saturday. I had everything in the car but it was really humid and oppressive. Watching some of the runners cross the line, grumbling about the heaviness of the air I decided not to bother and to go on Sunday instead after it had rained. The only trouble with that idea was that I was meeting friends in the pub Saturday night to watch England v Russia in the Euros. I managed to only drink three pints so I was pretty fresh when I got up to volunteer at Junior Parkrun this morning.
Once Junior Parkrun had cleared I got ready for my run. I managed to do the first lap in the dry but by mile 2 it was raining and it continued to rain for the next 12 miles - sometimes very hard! To begin with I tried avoiding the wetter bits of tarmac but it soon became very wet everywhere with many puddles to contend with. This makes it harder to dribble as you have to put more effort into bouncing the ball to make it come back to a suitable height. The water takes a lot of the sting out of each bounce. This is probably why my left shoulder began to ache a little. It's fine now though. I also had a trail of horse poo to contend with each lap. It went right across the path so I had to time the bounces well but it's all good experience. The rain also made all my Jelly Babies go soggy!
The increasingly difficult conditions meant that I did lose control once and had a couple of other wobbles but I still managed to do 13.52 miles in 02:00:58 which is 08:57 minutes per mile. I'm very happy with that as it was raining really hard at times. I now know that I can deal with it if it rains in April and that I'd much rather it did than have glorious sunshine. I don't cope with the heat well.
Now back to the real world. I have to take my daughter out to buy new school shoes.
I got very wet today

Friday 3 June 2016

BH10k - Blumin' Hilly

In fairness, I was warned by a friend who'd run the Brands Hatch 10k before that it was a bit hilly but I'd brushed it off. I'd watched a YouTube video of the track and decided it wasn't an issue. However, stood on the track at the top of Paddock Hill Bend it was an awful long way down and even further up to the top at Druids. On top of that there were awkward cambers that I haven't had to deal with before. Having said all that, it was all good experience and I just stopped for water briefly at 2 and 4 miles.
I was a bit disappointed at the size of the field as I was hoping to get more experience of running in a crowd but there were only about 200 runners. I took it fairly easy on the first lap as the track was more challenging than I'd anticipated but according to my Garmin I covered the 6.12 miles in 53:03 which is an average pace per mile of 8:40. Not bad considering the hills. My chip time may just come in at under 53 minutes but I'll have to wait and see about that.
I had kitted myself out with the GoPro camera on a chest harness as well as my hydration pack which I had deliberately overfilled just to get used to running with the weight. But as I approached the start line the camera wouldn't come on. I've been calling it a GoPro in all my posts but in reality it's a cheap copy and I paid for that today. It's always been a bit temperamental. I certainly won't be trusting it with the record attempt and will buy the real thing before the Copenhagen half. At least it saves me the bother of all that editing time tonight.
It was cold to stand about today but not a bad temperature to run in. Towards the end there was a very light drizzle which was quite refreshing and made my shoes squeak on the tarmac - I'm guessing there were a lot of petrol and oil spills being rehydrated.
It was a shorter distance than I would've run this weekend but I won't take the balls out again until the following weekend when I might try a half marathon distance.
As I was leaving today a group of spectators asked me:
"Did you lose the balls at all?"
"Of course I didn't!"
Brands Hatch in the June drizzle