Yeah, I am back baby!

Where to start?

Well, first up the good news, I can run again!!!!!!

Doctor is very happy with the state of my legs and I am now armed with a 21 day run/walk program. Anyone who has ever returned from injury will know how little running will be involved, but frankly I don’t care, it is the start of the journey back. Tomorrow’s session will only see me running for 4 minutes and walking briskly for 16 minutes (I have to walk 4 minutes run 1 minute for 20 minutes), so I’ll be down on the grass in Birrarung Marr tomorrow afternoon, if you see me please refrain from pointing and laughing

I will be doing a run/walk session every second day for the next 21 days, with the run sets getting longer and the walk sets getting shorter until I finish with walk 1 minute, run 5 minutes for 30 minutes. On day 21 I have an appointment to see the Doctor again at which point she told me that she will be letting me make bigger jumps in the running blocks and start talking about when I can return to real training, speed work and competing

Sadly though even walking the 10Km on the Gold Coast next week is strictly off the agenda so I will be cheering people on from the sidelines. I haven’t told my brother and sister yet but I suspect they may bail, though I hope not because I have paid for their entries.

Phew, I am so relieved, I will still have to go to the pool every day for at least the next month, but at least the end is now in sight. And when I told the Doctor how much pool running I had been doing she said I would have preserved alot of my fitness, especially as you are against 3 times the resistance under water, so more good news.

So what caused it????

I spent an hour with the Podiatrist this afternoon, armed with big bag of shoes for her to look at. Thankfully all my shoes are fine, which is a big relief as I just bought a new pair of Brooks about 7 weeks ago, I will also be allowed to run in my new cross country spikes.

I did get to run today, it was very exciting, she lent me a pair of shorts and I had a short run on the treadmill so my gait could be assessed, gotta say it felt fantastic.

Anyway, turns out that even though I am wearing the best shoes I can for my gait they still don’t provide enough support for my high arches and they did not correct the over pronation enough, added to that high arches also don’t absorb shock very well. So a combination of high mileage training, over pronation and poor shock absorbtion was just a bit too much for my poor tibias to handle and hey presto, Stress Fractures.

Hmmm, so how to prevent this catastrophe befalling me again??? Yup, you guessed it, custom orthotics. The Pod gave me 2 choices, custom’s at $490 a throw that will be tailored for me, will last 5 years and will allow me to keep up the high mileage stuff or off the shelf jobbies for $100 that will last a year and won’t be uniquely mine.

Would you like some thinking music Em, Dah, Dah, Dah, “break out that plaster of paris and get moulding, every second you waste is a second without my new feet”. They will be ready next Friday, but I will be picking them up the following Tuesday when I get back from the Gold Coast. With the run/walk program the orthotics should be nicely broken in by the time I am easing back into normal training.

So am I happy? Hell Yes!

I went out for an early dinner, because I was starving and was in such a good mood. I made a total pig of myself, prawn spring rolls, red curry, lovely glass of wine and a banana fritter. Yep, a banana fritter, I reckon I have one about once a year and it was good, with lots of ice-cream, Mmmmmmmmmmm

Irony
I am still battling with the database from hell at work today, 4 long days of setting up numbers for deployment into the new call routing world. 4 long days of staring at a monitor and scrolling through hundreds of lines trying to find the one I need because some short sighted moron didn’t think alphanumeric order would be helpful. They have fixed it but now we have to wait for our IT department to grind it’s way though the UAT and deem the upgrade OK for lodgment, therefore I am not holding my breath.

So, having a bellyache to my boss today because I got so frustrated with it yesterday afternoon that I was almost in tears, simply because it is such a stupid waste of my time. Anyway, I know there is nothing she can do about it, but I had to vent, so she said to me, this will make you laugh, the name of the company that developed it is “Simple”, I kid you not. Though it is apparent that this is Simple as in their parents are related, not Simple as in easy to use. Then she went on to tell me that they have a rep in Melbourne, Hmmm, really, and where would he be? “he’s quite good looking” said my boss, “yeah, he won’t be by the time I have finished with him”

Only one more day to go and I am free for 2 whole weeks