Slowly does it...

Last week’s proverbial testing of the water didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Accompanied by Garry (who was on his way to soccer), I cautiously navigated my way around a complex of grassy pitches for 20 minutes (in strict accordance with my physio’s guarded instructions). Sadly, my foot felt vulnerable from start to finish and I decided not to push it again for the week (retiring to the couch once again).

With my recovery in hiatus, daydreams of runs were once again forced to play a poor substitute role. Worse still, my mischievous lower limbs had rustled up a fresh affliction: plantar facilitis – an infamous and painful inflammatory of the tissue in front of the heel – has affected both feet; possible due to the recovery core exercises addressing my ligament problems! When I think back - this all could have been all avoided by going around 1 stone!

Anyway, a phone conversation with my physio anesthetised my latest foreboding – she calmly assured me that I was making progress; the bruising and ligament damage was approaching a clean bill of health, and the plantar facilitis could be addressed with more kneading of the area with my trusty – and multifaceted – golf ball. Explaining this peculiar need for mechanical movement of my legs under my work desk was an amusing distraction for many of my colleagues but my discipline appears to have paid off. A week on, I was ready to try again – last night, I tested the joints with a 30 minute run at about 7.5 minute/mile pace. It went reasonably well and despite my foot feeling a little tight, I’m very hopeful.

In theory, my plan for the next few days involves taking today off; jog for 40 minutes tomorrow; day off; 50 minutes jog; day off; 1 hour jog; day off, and then… hopefully… fingers crossed… touch wood… I’m recovered; ready to go back to my club, and start gearing towards Paris again.   

On an equally positive note, a friend of mine from hockey days in College is targeting Paris too. Unlike my good self, she is the veteran of 3 marathons, the latest being the ‘09 New York Marathon where she finished in 24^th place (2h52m21s). In a word, she’s fast. She also reads this blog (hi Jill) so I won’t wax too lyrically about her – suffice to say that it’ll be nice to have someone to bounce training programmes, experiences and everything else off. Not to take away from this cyber portal, absolutely not, it’s just… well… as the Boolean technologies go, it’s just a little too logical.  

172 days to Paris