Pre-marathon sports massage

I had meant to go for a deep tissue massage before now but what with all the running and everything I didn't got round to it until today. A friend from the club gave me the number of a therapist she recommended who is really reasonably priced so I thought I'd give her a try.
Early indications are, I'll be going back!

Last night was a tough track workout that left me in bits and I felt like an old lady getting out of my bed. Luckily a 6 mile recovery run this morning eased that a bit so by the time I arrived for my massage I was feeling quite limber.

While I didn't feel like I had any obvious hotspots it became obvious during the treatment that the upper part of both calf muscles were quite knotted and required a good bit of work. Ditto for the upper parts of my shins on the lateral side of my knee.

My right side in general was a lot tighter than the left and needed a lot more knots worked out, although the left lateral thigh area (part of the ITB) was unexpectedly a problem area whereas the right was fine. I'm sure this is all a function of my drastically uneven hips and lower spine but I hope some more focussed strength work over the winter will help even this out. Unfortunately nothing but a new skeleton is going to help the underlying issues.

All in all there was more there to work on than I thought there would be and probably less there than she had been expecting! I've been told to keep up the foam rolling, stretching and self-massage as I'm obviously doing a reasonable job so far so that's encouraging.

A productive morning but I'm wrecked now and have a parent teacher meeting to go to. Fingers crossed it goes well and I'm home in my jammies by six!

Injury scare and new shoes!!

Ooops!  Fell of the wagon again.  It does take me a while to build a habit but then once I do I'm on rails and dislike not doing what I'm supposed to so need to treat this blogging like salads and lunges!

Speaking of habits I need to pick up I had been dallying with some strength work and a bit of stretching to compliment my running but not with any regularity.  Well trust the universe to give me a good kick in the arse quite literally.

To give you some background I have been building up my mileage from a base of about 20miles a week after the marathon and in January back to 25-30miles in the last few weeks.  I was hoping to then gradually build this up to 40-50 by mid summer with the aim of being able to build up to a marathon from that base quite easily should I feel like it.  Anyway there I was going my merry little way with nary a thought of my poor stressed muscles, ligaments and tendons.  Surely disaster was about to strike!?

Last week I had put a target of 32 miles in place.  Started well with 10 on Monday feeling fine.  Rested Tuesday and went to the track for 8x400 on Wednesday which with a warm-up and cool down came to about 5 miles total.  Thursday was where I made a major mistake.  I usually meet similar paced friends from the club for a couple of easy 2.5mile laps following the speed work the previous night but wanted to get some extra distance in so arrived early.  Only to be met by the friendly, lovely, but much too speedy L & P.  Now these guys insisted that I should tag along with them as they were doing an easy recovery run anyway.  I argued briefly but allowed my arm to be twisted......silly girl!!!  I could tell they were slowing down for me but we still did the first lap at an average 8:10min/mile.......this is not recovery pace for me and I was not warmed up after a long day at a desk and an hours drive home.  Sure enough I started to feel discomfort along my left side about half way through the first lap.  Oh no!  Typically I was too busy trying to pretend I was ok at that pace to say anything so I waited until the end of the lap to stop......and then continued to do two more laps at a slower pace for a total of 7 miles.  By the time I got home I couldn't even decide where it hurt except that I ached all down my left side from under my ribcage to the ankle.  Fully. My. Fault.

This is where I do something smart for a change!!!  I rested.   I was very scared that this was something that would put me out of running for a few weeks or even months so while the discomfort wasn't that bad I decided to be conservative.  I read around and figured out it could be my IT band (have had issues there before) bursitis of the hip or something involving one of the glutes.  Or! Or!  It could just be my back which might sound more serious but if its only my back I know exactly where I stand from long experience and I know I can run on it.  Yay!
So I foam rolled and had a hot bath.  I self massaged and yoga'd.  I youtubed and as a result, myrtled (look it up!)  Everything that was in my arsenal I used except painkillers as a) I wasn't in enough pain and b) I wanted to locate the source of the discomfort.  By yesterday I still had pain to my ankle and this was very good news!  I've had sciatica enough to know that thats probably what it was.

I was going to go for a short trot yesterday to test it but sanity ruled and I left it until this morning.  There was a group from the club doing a ten miler at ten but again, good sense reigned and I decided to go by myself so I had control of the variables.  I wanted a few things.  Firstly I wanted time to do a proper warm up and to start slowly and work up to my own easy pace so I could watch my form.  Secondly I wanted to run on grass and I'm fairly sure the 10 miler would be mostly on road and thirdly (and relatedly) I didn't want a road camber to irritate my hips.  Anyway I set out in the pouring rain but I didn't care cos it was pain free for all 6 miles.  Yippee!!  Got back and did the stretches and strength work again and I'm still feeling good....pretty sure it's lower back pain.  Fingers crossed I can get back to building up my miles....phew!

Also I bought new shoes but I haven't gotten to wear them yet and this post is too long so I'll put up a pic in my next post.

Last solo!

I'm very excited to say that I did my last solo long run for quite a while last week!  Next weekend I have a kilomarathon (26.2km) and after that a 3/4 marathon (30ish km.)  I'm lucky in that I quite enjoy the time by myself that I get while running and I have no desire to run with groups regularly but it will be nice to have that energy for the next few weeks.  Does that make me seem really antisocial?

Will have to fit one more long run in after that and then it's taper time....otherwise known as Breaking Bad binge watch and Italian food eating frenzy time.  Can't wait!

In other news I had my first sports massage last week.  Naively I booked this on my birthday for a little treat for myself?  This was the opposite of relaxing.  50 minutes of undignified screeching later and I was officially feeling very sorry for myself indeed.....oh well!  Get over it you big jessie!

Happily the physio said I don't have any obvious problem areas and am surprisingly ok for a first marathon training cycle so that's good.  I'm wondering how painful the massage would be if I was having problems?

Speaking of birthday presents I did get a lovely surprise from the BF..... a garmin 210 with a hr strap.  What a guy!  He knows it's something I would never have gotten around to buying for myself (cos I'm not a real runner people!) but I'm delighted with it...and him the big handsome devil :)  Brought it out for a spin that very day.

Look at me adding pictures and everything!

Really sad to hear about the death of one of the half marathon runners in the Phoenix Park today.  I know that statistically these things do happen every now and again but it's always a terrible shock when it does and stats are very little help to the friends and family of this young man. Hopefully every young healthy person who is lost brings us one step closer to getting to the bottom of these syndromes.