Ouch

OK, three things to update about today: the run, weights and physio.

Actually, make that four: I continued my controlled eating throughout Thursday and Friday (though I, admittedly, went over my 1000 deficit target yesterday by nearly 400 but that was deliberate to aid recovery...).

The run. It was awful. Absolutely awful. Not from the perspective of groin pain though.

I set off and glanced at the Garmin after 1/4 mile and was at 9:15 pace so pushed a little harder. It felt tough though and the first mile still took 8:49 so I stopped for a stretch. Carrying on it felt somewhat easier at 8:22 and 8:25 with another stop just before three miles where I turned round but it still felt a good 30 seconds faster than that. Mile four was grim. It was like the end of a marathon: my legs felt dead and I couldn't help but slow. I stopped 3 times in the last mile and a half and slowed down to close to nine minute miles again.

I think it was down to two things. First up my hammies felt shot from weight training the night before and I was fairly knackered still overall (more on that later) and also I hadn't really ran for 16 days if you ignore the very slow plods with Beth.

The plus though was my beloved groin. Made a point of engaging the core and suffered no big ill effects during or after. In fact the feeling of stiffness I'd had in the adductors was eased by the run.

So, onto the physio at 8am yesterday morning. The regular physio went on maternity after my last visit in May and passed me on to a colleague (hence the trip to Harrogate). Unfortunately it was her last day yesterday and they'd lost all my notes. That made it a more difficult appointment but the upshot was she thinks a few things combined to bring back the pain:

• I stopped doing the daily exercises a couple of weeks too soon
• I was probably not quite doing enough each week for maintenance
• Its likely that I'd got lazy on form and was treating it as a numbers game just to get through
• I'd possibly not engaged the core consistently through the last runs (where the pain came in)

However, she thinks its probably controllable again by going back to basics:

• Daily exercises for the next couple of months
• Maintenance of 3 times a week thereafter, increasing to 5 times a week if training volume/intensity raises e.g. marathon training
• Be mindful of form - always - starting with pelvic floor exercise before each set

She even thought racing could be OK too. I'm not as convinced of that though.

The discomfort hasn't completely gone and in order to race next week I'd need to feel daily exercises were eradicating this and that I could run on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday with a bit of zip. If I can't run a potential PB I don't see the point in taking the risk. we'll see how the week goes.

Lastly the gym. By Thursday evening my traps, lats, hammies were all very sore with some discomfort also in my calves, glutes, triceps and forearms. The new programme obviously works! Even yesterday I was still sore in lats and hamstrings so I pushed the weights back to today and opted for core, cardio and alot of stretching. Forty minutes on the cross trainer helped the hamstrings and ten minutes rowing certainly loosened the lats. Stretching also helped as my hamstrings were particularly tight.

Today I'll take Beth for a run, go to the gym and cook a curry. Champion.

I'm quite pleased with myself

Sue and the girls went down to her parent's Tuesday morning (and come back tomorrow), leaving me 'home alone'. That's normally a danger for me but, so far, not this time.


I'm not good being alone, which is odd for someone who, since losing the crutch of alcohol, finds social situations hard work. As a result I've tended to go off the rails whenever I'm left alone.

I remember back in the mid 90s when Sue would go away each year to Robin Hood's Bay with her work I'd get a takeaway each evening - calling in at a restaurant and getting a takeaway with a couple of pints while I waited.

In following years it'll have been takeaways or the occasional meal out alone - a curry or a trip to a nice Persian restaurant. In the last couple of years she's gone away about 3 times a year to her parents during the school holidays and I've tried to control myself. Last time I went and got a job lot of ready meals from Marksies in the hope that would satisfy my desire for a 'treat' while she was away. It failed miserably. Very few ready meals are much of a treat with the low calorie ones the least appealing of the lot. Up shot being that I got two takeaways, biscuits, sweets, chocolate...

This time though I seem to be doing OK. On Tuesday I went to the gym and ASDA and had a lentil and tomato 'thing' (something I make that works as a soup base with added stock or can be had with pasta or rice - I suppose its nearest to a pasta sauce) when I got in; and yesterday I did the gym again and made myself sandwiches with the ever pleasant Burgens Soya & Linseed bread afterwards.

Weight wise a little more has dropped off so that I'm only a shade over 12 stones now - so that's my reward for being more disciplined. Well, its part of it. The other part is that I feel happier without the treats or perhaps I've given myself different treats (long session at the gym and more satisfying food).

On the gym front I got a new programme this week and did it for the first time yesterday. From memory it contains:

Squats on Smith machine
Bulgarian lunge
Shoulder press with dumbbells
Lateral pull down
Chest press with barbell
Face pull on cable machine
Plank
Pallof press
Leg press
Leg curl
Bicep curl with dumbbells

All at 3 x 12 rather than the previous 3 x 10.

I certainly found it harder work (even the rep increase on the old exercises like chest press) and have some soreness today. Good though. Also tagged on 40 minutes on the cross trainer.

Groin feels tight but I'm going to chance a run today (after opting out of Tuesday's club run). Fingers crossed.

The joys of daily weighing...

...and this time it is a joy!

Weighed myself this morning after the first 24hrs back on track and the weight had plummeted to 12st 2.8lb - a one day loss of 4.4lb.

Obviously carrying a lot of food in transit and retaining some water. Ok its not fat loss for the most part but it makes the holiday gain a more manageable 5.8lb and already takes the target date down to the 8th October.

Suspect that in a week or ten days the target date will have fallen to late Sept or the first couple of days in October: far more sustainable. That might well mean I'll err on the side of keeping it up in 4 weeks...or maintain in three...

Decisions, decisions.

There no posts for 5 days then 3 come along at once...

I had planned to be at 11st by the ‘racing season’ or close to it. In other words by early September. At the moment my target date would be 24th October, though that could easily drop by a week or two if this week were to give a larger than normal loss due to water retention and food in transit issues being reversed - which is likely.

I wouldn’t be unhappy with that based on where I am now.

Training wise the groin is niggling and whilst I hope repeating what I’ve done before will fix it it’s certainly a risk and could easily be exposed by tomorrow’s club run – but if I don’t test it I’ll never know.

However, that means I ought to be looking to moderate demands over the next few weeks.

To manage rehabilitation there’s a few measures:

• Wear support shorts for the next month or so
• Do the daily core exercises
• Engage the core muscles throughout runs
• Cut back on long run distance
• Reduce racing/speed work
• Reduce overall mileage & number of runs
• Increase weight training intensity and gym cardio work to offset running reduction
  

That’s all sensible stuff but I need to factor in racing ‘commitments’.

At present I’m due to do Birchwood 10k on the 22nd and then do the Paras 10, a tough 10 miler, 3 weeks later on the 12th September, then there’s another 2 weeks off until the Horsforth 10k. Then there would be another 3 weeks until Turbo X and Wistow 10 on consecutive weekends, Hellrunner 2 weeks later and the Abbey Dash 10k a fortnight further still.

However, if I dropped the Paras 10 the first longer run wouldn’t be until the 17th October meaning I could keep the long run mileage down to 8 miles or so for some time. That would be a big help in managing recovery. It would also mean 5 weeks of no racing after Birchwood and would fit nicely in terms of projected rate of weight loss.

That’s decided then.

However, what isn’t decided is whether the projected weight loss timetable is what I could/should be chasing. Thanks to Alison for putting that idea in the mix.

On the ‘yes’ side is the fact that there is no holiday or other distraction (barring August BH weekend) on the horizon; that it’s a time of year I tend to do well in in terms of weight loss; that reduced running will be more than offset by additional gym work.

On the ‘no’ side would be the less tangible thought that perhaps I ought to be chasing some sort of stability, maybe with a few weeks maintaining weight rather than losing or gaining. I’d expect that to happen in the 8 weeks or so before marathon training started and throughout marathon training but maybe I need to spread that 8 weeks into two 4 week blocks?

What I’m not prepared to do is maintain at current weight. I want to get closer to 11st 7lb at least. So for the next 4 weeks it’s definitely weight loss but do I then have a ‘breather’? Or adopt a 3 weeks on one week off approach kind of like a running plan, maybe with more calories available in cut back weeks? Or would having a pause when within 4 weeks of final goal be crazy and I should keep up the momentum? Or do I just stay flexible and make a call on it depending on how things are a month from now?

On this element I’m really not sure.

I've had my ups and downs

Following on from the last blog, outlining the huge backwards leap I've taken in the last 2 weeks, I've been looking at my Results Graph on http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/.

It covers the last 20 months and resembles the profile of a series of Alpine peaks. A number of steady downward lines punctuated by sudden short upward spikes with precious little stability. It doesn't look much but each peak and valley tell their own story:

• Starts off with 3 months of steady weight loss at the beginning of 2009 as I trained for the Paris marathon, losing 27lbs.
• Ten days of post marathon excess, a week of hard training then a month of limited training (as my legs recovered) mean comfort eating and half the weight goes back on.
• But that's OK as I have a new target and lose all of that and 3lb more in the 10 weeks leading up to the summer holiday in France
• Plenty of running in France off sets the foodie nature of the holiday to a large extent but a week of eating out and eating rubbish on the return means there's still a few pounds back on.
• Another consistent 8 weeks though that takes me to my lowest ever adult weight - 11st 7lbs - as I run well in a series of races and recognise weight loss as a major contributor to this and to potential future improvements.
• I've been ignoring ever worsening groin pain though and that and training fatigue leads to me taking a week off in mid October where I deliberately eat appallingly to 'get it out of my system'
• It doesn't work and with autumn giving way to the dark nights of winter, my 40th birthday imminent, the groin no better and a week's leave spent not away somewhere but sitting bored on the sofa I feel very down and try to find solace in food (as so often I do). That's just a vicious circle triggering more negativity and eating. Within a month I've put on well over a stone.
• But November isn't so bad. with the 40th out of the way I get back on track, despite running all but stopping and lose half a stone in the month.
• By the beginning of December I get the news that the groin injury will be long term and that Paris marathon will be a non-starter in 2010. I think 'f*ck it' and give up for December. Despite a few minor concessions to cutting the traditional excess at Christmas I still put on about 16lb in 5 weeks.
• With no Paris to aim for and no resumption of running on the horizon its difficult to get going in the New Year but a decent 15 weeks gets me slowly back to where i was at the beginning of December.
• I can't keep it up though despite running having resumed and switch off for 3 weeks and put 10lb on.
• Steady progress in June and good progress in July take me down to 11st 11lb and that feels so good and yet...
• Two and a half weeks on from that I've gone into gluttonous excess mode again when faced with feeling sorry for myself over the absence of holiday and worrying about a recurrence of groin pain.

And so the merry go round will start once again and later today I'll reassess my plans and objectives for the next couple of months.

Anyone else have a pattern like this or am I the only fruitcake at the WI show?

All over for another year

That's it then, summer holiday over with for another year. Its been a strange one too.

Between the summer of 2003 and last summer I can recall going to Crete three times, Corfu, Kefalonia, Kos, SW France twice, Paris three times, Rome, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest, Scotland twice. That's not bad in a little over six years but it all stopped after last summer, since when we've had two weekends away camping in Swaledale and 5 nights the week before last camping in Scotland.

Last week I was off work too but instead of heading to North Wales as we'd planned we stayed at home and went for trips out. During the week we went to Magna in Sheffield, the National Coal Mining Museum near Wakefield, to the National Rail Museum in York and then yesterday to the Castle Museum also in York. On top of that we twice went to the buffet at Agraah in Shipley, had a Chinese takeaway, ate in two of the museums and had sweets, chocolates, biscuits, peanuts, dips, cakes, crisps most evenings as part of 'treat week'. Oh, and we twice had ice creams too!

All in all it was pretty good, and the kids also went to the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds and to see Toy Story 3 at the cinema. OK, we didn't get sunshine or to see another culture or sample another country's foods but it was OK.

What's all this got to do with running and fitness?

Not a lot, and that's the point of blogging it. With other temptations, a groin injury for me and a bad back for Sue there was limited running, only the short walk in Scotland and only two trips to the gym in the fortnight despite all the free time. There was also the 'traditional' feeling sorry for myself and (failing to) find comfort in eating crap.

A little over two weeks ago I was very much 'in the zone', feeling good about myself and weighing in at 11st 11lbs. Eighteen days later and I weigh 12st 8.2lb. Yes, you've read that right, that's a gain of 11.2lbs. Now, I know a good chunk of that will be water retention and 'food in transit' but even so there's some considerable weight gain that I can feel as well as see in numbers on the scales.

So, later today I'll reassess my objectives and plans in light of this but before that I'll put this latest setback into context...

Day One (again)

Suitably chastened by Allison's stern rebukes I decided to cancel yesterday's club run and just test the groin with a 2.6 mile jog with Bethan.

I made a point of focusing on engaging the core muscles - (semi) specifically the ones you'd clench if you were desperate for the loo but not yet near one - and suffered no discomfort during the run. It took a bit of concentration to keep that up. Its something I found hard at first but then more or less got in the habit of doing it every time though I suspect that recently when I've tired either at the end of longer LSRs or during races I've let slip.

Afterwards there was no great problem and certainly no lower abs discomfort at all, just that feeling of the left hand side of the groin somehow feeling slightly 'misaligned'.

By this morning even that had passed.

However, I'm going to be cautious as I've been here before - chasing miles or times while it gets progressively worse and have come up with a plan:

1) Start on the core stability exercise program again
2) Cut back on mileage this week by just running once more with Beth and doing 6-8 miles at the weekend
3) Replace this week's runs with cardio & weights at the gym
4) Cut back LSRs to 10/12 miles max for the next couple of months
5) Really concentrate on engaging the core at all times during runs

With luck that will keep me on track without anything getting worse.

To kick that off I revised the core programme today and did the first set:

• Plank
• Side plank
• Swiss ball hyperextension
• Bridge
• Static lunge
• Walking lunges
• Single leg dips
• X-band walk
• Supine hip extension
• Lying hip adduction
• Piriformis stretch

All lovingly tabulated into an Excel plan in the colours of my favourite Adidas Adizero kit. I really need to get out running again soon don't I?