Sunday, February 17, 2008

Almost fixed (I hope)

If you just check in here weekly, then I have made quite a few blog posts last week you may want to look over. The news of the week was that I had to pull out of the Thames Meander. I felt justified because on the morning of the event I knew the leg was not ready. It was a lovely day and I sure the event would have been fantastic, but it wasn't to be. My uncle very kindly came over to my house on his way back from a wedding and gave me some more treatment on my calf. The bunched fibres are gradually untangling, and are much improved but there is still a stubburn knot that is persisting and I feel tightness from my knee to my toe. My uncle confirmed that I would not have been wise to attempt the race as he treated the leg. It is sore at both ends of the muscle, as well as at this knot, so I did a pretty good job of 'pulling' it. I have been applying some Voltarol over the last few days to ease the soreness.

I did 35k on the bike on Friday, rested the leg on the Saturday after the treatment, but then did 2 hours in the gym today. I did an hour on the cross trainer, then 10 minutes on the rowing machine, followed by 45 minutes (28K)on the bike. None of that is a good replacement for a 54 mile run, but it is the best I can do right now.

I will try a short and slow run on Tuesday, and if that goes ok I will try a little further as the week progresses. On Thursday and Friday I have some sessions in an exercise climate chamber at the local campus of Manchester Met University. I'm looking forward to those; my first chance to sample 40C in full kit. I have a final session the Monday afterwards. My goal is to hopefully run 34-40 miles next week, and then back on schedule (70+) the week after. Right now, I don't know if that will be possible, I can only hope so.

Have a good week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Be patient. Don't push too hard. I've put too much time into reading this for you to blow it now!

Good luck with the heat chamber.

Rich said...

lol, thanks Andrew. So far so good this week. Heat chamber tonight. Just a touch nervous. I'll be in full mds gear and backpack at 40C.