Karen writes: Two arms.

My flash training diary is looking decidedly unimpressive on the exercise front.  But it does have other stuff in it, like yesterday I went for an ultrasound scan of the problematic shoulder.  I sat with all the people who looked sick and looked like they should be lined up in that waiting room, and the pregnant ladies who didn’t look sick but also looked like they had a reason to be there...I felt rather out of place.

Anyway, in the darkened room it was time to bare the shoulder, get slathered in gel, and contort into various positions with varying degrees of discomfort while the deep dark secret things normally hidden from sight inside me showed up onscreen.

As luck would have it, the scanner man was a tri-athlete, emphasis on 'was'.  He had stopped due to that life thing interfering and now his tri-athleticism squatted in the back of his head under the category of ‘just too much hard work’.  He gave me a run-down of what he was seeing as he worked his scanner …healthy tendons, no obvious muscle tear, but a bursitis with obvious inflammation was there. Ok. Options…anti-inflammatories, and maybe a steroid injection…hmmm, don't much like that idea, do I really need both arms working anyway?  And given my age, I now apparently had a good chance of it coming back if I didn’t take sensible precautions like good stretching, strengthening the right muscles, good posture and avoiding things which put the aging shoulder at risk of injury again.  Oh dear, that means I will never take up professional tennis, I won’t become a weight lifter, and digging holes (which I did do at one point in my life) just isn't a career option anymore. He did say something which made me feel a little more optimistic, he commented that most 'mature' athletes who line up at these events will have their own weakness, an injury they have and are actively managing or actively preventing, I may just have to watch this shoulder myself. My parting shot was that the scanner man should start his own exercise again, it only gets harder if you don’t.

I sent a text to Kate.   Pharmacology Kate teasingly responded “steroids, might make you go faster”  In my dreams I thought.  So I sat on the spin bike for an hour last night reading a book.  ‘Light spin’ I call that, coach type people would probably call it ‘time wasting’.   Today I went to the physio and after some ‘stretching of the capsule’ and other things outside my understanding of anatomy we agreed I would leave the decision about the steroids for another week.

Tonight I went for a fast run, in the dark, on a cold and clear and beautiful night. I pondered getting a needle stuck into my shoulder…until I forgot about it and just thought about running in the dark on a clear and beautiful night.

Kate Writes: New day

Monday was the start of my new exercise plan from my coach. It was raining, I was tired but I was going to go home and then run. Yea right! I know how bad I am at doing that, but after all I had paid the money and I needed to start. Well an angel had been watching me, as I was on the way home the text went. I stopped (as we all should do) and checked who it was from. Well it was from Mark my running buddy. I had not run with him all year, but today he asked if I was running. Yippee! I went and changed at New World, they have a good clean toilet. Got to the car park and meet up with Kevin as well. There were 5 of us and they all had coughs and said they would run slow. Well I was fit and healthy and had to breath very hard to keep up with them. It started raining, it was dark and slippery. I made it around the golf course and then ran back down the road. I could just imagine falling and splitting my arm open. It was a good first back run. 

Karen writes: Good intentions underway

Super Triathlon Diary - made the first entry in it today... it was "DAY OFF".  Not quite the most exciting start.

Healthy Eating - No V today after an exercise in magnificent self control (there is spare V in the office fridge).   But there was leftover chocolate coated ginger in my office, that would have been sacrilege to throw out.  Hmmm...better day tomorrow.

Shoulder - went to physio.  Have been doing exercises and it hurts.  Time for an ultrasound...excellent idea... so I left the ultrasound referral form sitting tidily at the physio reception waaaay over in Parnell on the other side of Auckland.   Clever.

Karen writes: Good intentions...Monday

Kate has a new plan.  I'm planning too.  I have given myself a severe talking to, it is a month exactly since the Rotorua marathon, and only 13 weeks out from our next marathon.  It is time to stop treating myself like a precious wimp, and even if my arm isn't 100% yet, there is no reason why I cant take action to drop some weight, do some leg strength training, and make the running I am managing more useful.

So I have purchased a diary.  This one is meant to be especially for 'triathletes'.   It has lots of little boxes to fill out and spaces to record weights and goals and achievements, and something called a 'key session' record where you do the same thing (eg, 10km run) again, just better. It is surely guaranteed to make me a better athlete!   The diary starts on Monday, I plan on keeping it beside my bed so I can reflect (good word that) on my training activities.   Tomorrow is my last long run taking the current lazy approach, and after tomorrow I am determined that even if I achieve nothing else I will stop rewarding myself excessively with food after running (but I have earned that chocolate).  Me and my diary...getting SERIOUS on Monday!

 

Kate Writes: new plan

My coach rang yesterday and we have set up a new plan. I am an organised person and i need the plan. It starts tomorrow so today is my last day of rest. Mind you I've just been for a two hour walk on west coach beach with Rach and the dogs.

Karen writes: Lovely run

It was a perfect evening for a run and I went to work early so I could come home a bit earlier especially to take advantage of the lovely weather.  I started by running alongside Maraetai beach, there were children playing on the sand, people walking and talking and enjoying the weak warmth from the sun at the end of this beautiful winter day in Auckland.

I ran a bit further to where there is a picture-perfect crescent shaped bay fringed with massive palm trees.  In the distance I could see at the apex of the bay two people, both seated on chairs.  As I got closer I could hear strains of music, and see that one had a keyboard instrument of some sort, the other brass.  Their sheet music was arranged on a stand in front of them, they were facing out to sea as though they were playing to an invisible audience.  My heart lifted with pleasure at the strange sight, and with the anticipation of beautiful music.

Sadly it wasn’t, but I kept running and in the next bay there was a screaming child being chased by a parent down the beach, and a dog came running up to me on the road.  The owner yelled at the dog, and it went and danced around someone lying on the sand.  The owner apologised to her, I wondered what was different about the dog bouncing me and bouncing the beach-lounger?

Further on there was a child standing at the edge of the water holding onto one end of a fishing net. The child was wearing so many clothes I couldn’t decide if it was a boy or girl, but mum was in the water up to her chest at the other end of the net. The sea was so perfectly flat that I could see the drops of water fall from her arms and making rings on the sea surface as she manoeuvred the net.   She stopped and stood still and seemed content to wait for long moments with the now orange light of the sun in her face.   I thought she must be bl**dy freezing!

I ran and ran and eventually turned around after saying hi to a man taking a bucket of water for a walk along the road.  On the way back the fishers were still there, but the child had now taken off most of the layers of clothing and joined mum in the water.  The dog and the owner and the child and parent and the lounger and the visually rather than aurally appealing musicians had gone.   It was a lovely run.

Karen writes: Crocks

Goodness, me and Kate are a pair of crocks at the moment. 

I was lucky enough however to get out for a run on Sunday.  The run itself felt pretty average, in spite of it being an absolutely gorgeous morning.  I ran at first with the Te Puru runners along the Omana and Maraetai waterfront, then headed off by myself through the country towards Clevedon, marvelling at things like clumps of very early jonquils, gorgeous Autumn leaves, cold looking cyclists, and drivers feeling the need to speed past me stirring up choking clouds of lime dust from roadworks.

I was in no hurry to go home though and just meandered along, eating my favourite coca cola flavoured energy gels and thinking about nothing much.  You see there was no shower at home due to urgent and unplanned renovations happening in the bathroom.  It was found on Friday that the bath was threatening to descend through the floor of its own accord, not good.  On Saturday night I had suggested that if the there wasn’t a usable shower on Sunday morning, I wasn’t coming home from my run until there was one.  Just as well I didn’t really mean it, 2 ½ hours on the road was quite enough given I am on ‘light’ running while I recover from the tricky shoulder problem.

I am pleased to report that the shower now works, and the shoulder is more upset by my sitting typing at work than by the running.   I have just taken the arms off my office chair to try to improve the angle for using the mouse to try to fix that.   

Anyway, it is 3 weeks since the Rotorua Marathon and I am very aware that I have lost condition. I feel I can vaguely claim the title of 'runner', but don't feel even remotely like a 'triathlete'. My weight is up, my clothes don’t feel the same, and there is a sense that something important is missing from my life.  I feel so much better after going for even a bad run that I want to get back into a training routine… soon!