It's French for Motivation

My first post-knee problems training runs went pretty well last week. I completed all three mid-week runs without pain and with a minimum of walking. All this AND I managed one of them at Cottesloe Beach with the lovely Rachel. Sadly, my planned long run was derailed by a nasty virus that saw me sick in bed for the best part of two days. And not even lovely reading-and-being-brought-tea-and-toast sick in bed. More like rolling-waves-of-nausea-extreme-headaches-and-dizziness sick in bed, so nauseous in fact (to paraphrase an old Dean Martin gag), that I couldn't lie on the floor without holding on. And there's not much to do about that kind of sick other than just go with it.

Fortunately, I am feeling much better now and even managed a 5km run yesterday, my first run of the week. The knee did start to niggle a bit at the end so I have been ice-packing it at regular intervals all day. Hopefully that and a day of rest will get it right for the rest of the scheduled runs.

Last week I met with the lovely Simone, sports nutritionist extraordinaire, just to get some advice as I enter this serious part of the year. I have a tendency to under-eat which is fine and dandy when you are not running lots of kilometres a week but not when you are training for a marathon. She gave me a lot of great ideas and tips but most importantly told me that I need to make sure I eat a low-fat, high carbohydrate snack about 1 - 2 hours before training and then have a carbohydrate snack within 15 - 30 minutes after training. Simone gave me a list of post-training treats - oh and HOORAH for permission to buy pre-packaged snack food!! In fact, I can directly credit last night's run to a YoPlait Le Rice (Chocolate flavour) and it will be the promise of a Foster & Clark's Custard Cup that will get me through the 6.5km run tomorrow. Oh, and note to children who may be reading this: a) it's hidden, b) (and not in the usual hiding spots, either), c) you probably wouldn't like it and d) PAWS OFF!!

Speaking of paws (*groan*, sorry), it's only a few weeks until the 'Red Dog' movie fundraiser on the 12th of August at 9.30am. If you can make it, you will be treated to a great movie with champagne and some seriously good nibbles. You can contact me or Dee for tickets on 0427 272 732. We will giving away some fantastic handbags as door prizes thanks to the lovely Neesha, and will be having a raffle as well, with great prizes donated by the Millpoint Cafe Bookshop in South Perth and the lovely Marshall from the Good Store (www.thegoodstore.com.au) in Victoria Park.

Running Song of the Week: (I'm sorry to say that it's getting WORSE not better). It's .. ahem... inaudible mumble ..cough ...Leo Sayer 'You Make Me Feel Like Dancing'. (Because he does. Even though I know it's wrong.)

The Beginning Is the End is The Beginning

Oh hoorah I can run again!! After two weeks of enforced resting, my lovely sports physio Gerard has given me the ok to get back into it. Just as well as I've been feeling like the Phys. Ed. students in my 'Legal Issues for School Teachers' lecture today (they were easy to spot because they sat in a cluster and jiggled up and down throughout the entire 45 minute talk, much like a pack of human teabags) - I don't want to sit still, I just want to RUN!!

And time is ticking along. This week marks the beginning of the very significant 16 week period leading up to the marathon. Most training programs are 16 weeks long, including the one in my favourite book, the 'Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer'. So it was psychologically important for me to get back into it this week.

But news! A trainer! I has one! Although I had grand plans to take on this marathon alone, in order to give it my best shot, I thought it might be wise to have someone who knows what they are doing keep an eye on me, keep me motivated and hopefully prevent physical problems before they arise. I shall be catching up with the lovely Peter soon now I am fit to train.

Hopefully, a trainer will also be able to help me with the mental aspect of training as well. Because I had a spectacular anxiety dream about the marathon the other night. In my dream, I had worked out that since it was going to take me 6 hours to run the marathon and everyone else would be taking only 4 hours, I had to give every runner, all 42 000 of them, a 2 hour head start. And that I'd just do a spot of shopping while I waited. In my dream, my faulty arithmetic hit me while I was browsing in a lovely Judaica shop in Brooklyn (anyone who knows me knows this is exactly where I will be browsing once I get to New York so that part had some basis in reality, at least). And I realised that I was already 20km behind everybody else and still had to find the Staten Island starting point. And I was going to be LAST. Again. But this time out of 42 000 people. (Clearly the emotional trauma of the Women's Classic a couple of weekends ago is yet to heal.)

A selection of the 42 000 people to whom I gave a head start

This week's Novice Supreme schedule involves 2 x 5km runs, 1 x 6.5km run and a relatively short 'long' run of 8km. I've done one of the 5km runs already. Hopefully, my fitness hasn't decreased too much and I'll be able to complete the rest without incident.

And (as borrowed from 'Legging It for Louis') Running Song of the Week is ...... 'Like It Like That' by Guy Sebastian. Cheesy, I know, but just the right tempo! (And he has such lovely hair)

Everybody Hurts (And Plagiarises) Sometimes

Well, this last week has been The Week of the Health Professional (oh, I am SO feeling my age). As I mentioned after my last blog post, I had an appointment with a sports physio the day after the Women's Classic. I don't actually speak physio so a lot of what he said kind of went in one ear and out the other. Fortunately, the lovely Dee is fluent and she can translate - so my hopeful 'something about a tender fashion latte?' quickly became tensor fascia lata.

Basically, the lovely Gerard, my brand new sports physio, gave me a telling off for pushing through the pain and that my 'gutsy marathoner' impersonation was not clever. Dramatic performances are best left for the actual marathon, he said. My knee problem is in fact iliotibial band friction syndrome or ITBFS. The iliotibial band stabilises the knee during running, but the band rubs over some knobbly bit which combined with the flexion and extension of the knee while running can cause the area to become inflamed - and, why yes, I did just plagiarise that from Wikipedia (although 'knobbly bit' is entirely my own work).

And since we're plagiarising, why not just breach copyright as well? Thanks, Wikipedia!

This may well prove to be a bit of an ongoing problem so Gerard thought that a week of hitting it hard (the problem, that is, not the knee) was the way to go. Firstly, NO running, not even walking. Secondly, a week of anti-inflammatories. And thirdly, some stretches to limber up, one of which involves me rolling the outside of my thigh on a blue rubber roller. Ow. I have an appointment with Gerard tomorrow to see if those steps have helped and more importantly, to find out when I can start running again.

My second health professional visit was to the lovely Dr Ric to check on my iron levels. Disastrously low, I should have realised. I'm now on a supplement so strong that I may well set off the metal detectors at the airport but I am feeling much more energetic. So hoorah for iron supplements!

I SO hope that's the end of the medical stuff - and the desperately suppressed fear that I really am too out of condition to do this and that it was truly mad to think that I could. Apologies to 'Wicked' but something has changed within me ... I really, really love to run now and I want to give this marathon my absolute best shot. And I don't want some ill yo-yo titbits band friction syndrome giving me grief.

By the way, here is a blog I can relate to. Jackie, another first-time marathoner in New Zealand is 'Legging it for Louis', a young boy with severe Type 1 diabetes who is in need of expensive equipment in order to better manage his condition. It's hard not to be moved by what Louis has to live with.  I've just donated to her cause and am loving Jackie's blog, especially her 'Running Song of the Day' (which, speaking of plagiarising, I shall totally be incorporating into my blog!). Check out 'Legging it for Louis' here

That's Me in the Corner, Feeling My Humanity

‘Fear makes us feel our humanity.’ ~Benjamin Disraeli

I must admit to feeling my humanity quite a lot at the moment. In fact, I think I might actually be Freaking.Right.Out again. I don't mean to sound like Carrie Bradshaw here but I can't help but wonder ... is this untested 42 year old body really capable of running a marathon?

This morning I ran in the 10km Women's Classic at Burswood. The shins did great but the 42 year old body, more specifically the 42 year old left knee, not so much. Because I was wearing my new Skins, I thought that I wouldn't need my knee supports as well. Wrong. As explained to me by the lovely Dee, the knee supports prevent hyper-extension, the Skins don't. So it was a matter of simple biomechanics - my knees are used to running with the supports and even a minor change changed the way I ran. It didn't take long (3km in fact) for that change to result in some serious pain at the end of my left tensor fasciæ latæ. Ouch.

I was sorely (pardon the pun) tempted to take the 5km route option but couldn't bear to opt out. I managed to keep running at various points but not for very long (mainly through the parts where there were signs warning about snakes) and by 6km, I gave up any attempt as it was too painful. At the 8km point, even walking was getting unbearable but I convinced worried officials that I would be able to make it to the end. By the 9km point everyone had passed me but I got to the end even if I was stone. cold. LAST.

I'm trying not to be too disappointed. Firstly, I did it. This is quite a mental victory because I have never pushed through any sort of pain to complete something before (excepting, quite literally, childbirth - but there really is no 5km option there). I am against discomfort in all its forms but my determination to finish what I started kept me at it. Secondly, even though I walked most of this race and practically hobbled to the end I was still only a few minutes slower that my Around the Bridges time. So I must be getting a bit faster. That's good!



This woman is a physiotherapist so we can't show you her face on this blog

Fortunately, Dee's Physiotherapy is open for emergencies on a Sunday (she'll even make you tea and Nutella on toast!) and she gave me some treatment and stretches to do that will hopefully lengthen those TFL's out and stop them causing problems in the future. As a happy coincidence, I've also got an appointment with a sports physio tomorrow for a musculoskeletal exam just to see what (other) bits of this aforementioned untested body might cause problems as I approach the pointy end of the training. The non-sporty background means this body's injury free but it also means it's an unknown quantity - and I'm going to be asking it to do an awful lot in the next four months!