Enforced rest

It seems things aren’t going so well currently. After struggling through the last 3 weeks (which in itself included a week of non-running to rest my hip) I’ve now been advised to rest some more. I’ve been to see the physio about my knee and been working on some exercises to remedy a biomechanical imbalance which seems to be working. However, she’s now more concerned about my right hip (as am I) which is now painful to run on and uncomfortable to walk on resulting in a slight limp. So I have more exercises to do to try to stretch out the hip joint and see if it frees up.

I’ve got another appointment next Wednesday, but I’m thinking that if it’s no better (which after a week of more or less no running (I did a few miles to work on Tuesday and it was really quite painful) it doesn’t seem to be) I may go to the GP to see about some other form of remedy.

Either way, my running is not going quite to plan at present which is annoying as I feel like I approached the build up nice and steadily and have been rewarded with a succession of niggles and injuries. I’m rather looking forward to being able to go on a long run and not be worried about which bit is going to be sore for the whole run. Maybe at my age I’m asking too much, but I hope not.

A change is as good as a rest, almost.

My hip last week was really painful, even on walking so I decided to ditch the running for a week and cross train instead. I had a physio appointment last week too, following up on my knee injury so I picked up some exercises to try to help my hip as well – it feels like I’m falling apart a bit. Hopefully the rest and getting my knee back in alignment will sort it out – after a week of no running it does feel a lot better, and so next week it’s back to the trainers and hills.

I ended up going out on my bike twice last week – once to do 25 miles on the way to work on Thursday and again on Saturday morning. The Saturday trip wasn’t exactly planned, until mid-way through 6 pints of Moonshine on Friday night when I agreed to join a group of regular cyclists for their usual 50 mile trip through the Peak District at 8am the following morning.
Despite stinking of ale as I arrived and introduced myself, I put in a reasonable performance all things considered – like not having ridden more than about 5km in almost a year, and then bashing out 25 miles just 48 hours before. At the end of it I was completely out of fuel and spent a lot of Saturday afternoon recuperating.

Other good news is that I managed a pretty respectable 1,500m swim on Friday afternoon too in 28 mins 40 secs, again having not swum for ages, which I was pleased with. I just have to contend with aching in muscles I’m not used to aching in.

From the success of this week I’m keen to include more cross training into the programme, if only to maintain interest. It’s just a case of finding the time to fit it in.