Here comes the towel

Sadly, I have to throw in the towel (for now at least). My foot just wouldn't seem to strenghten and there was no point in pushing it. There'll be other races.. I'm not going to target anything specific just yet; I'll rest and not thinking about it for a while will surely help recovery.

Take care and see you all soon.

A new goal

I tap my latest musing from the soothing comforts of the bed – it is from here that I nurse a distinctly numb foot after a close encounter with a rather large needle. While this sensation of deadening numbness may be new to my lower limb, the feeling is a familiar - if somewhat unwelcome - guest to my body. It is in fact the same heavy state that my jaw and cheekbone carry after I’ve spent 2 hours cursing the dentist - wriggling in her chair and pleading for the bright light overhead to finally come and take me away. Today however, no piercing instruments of dentistry were involved, merely a cortisone injection into the sheeting around my tendon (the name of which escapes me). 

I have a little tale… it involves a physio, a specialist, me, and it culminates in an uncomfortable visit to the hospital – hmm, that line that may yet grace my epitaph as it tends to feature in most of my life stories (for example, that time I had to get an x-ray in Ecuador and they thought they had ‘rayed’ the wrong hand – bit of a ‘lost in translation’ moment that, or that time my finger was smashed to bits and Bec fainted on first sight of it, or that time I got an asthma attack while on the piss 2 hours from the hospital and had to stop off for oxygen on the way at a doctors surgery, any one of the three operations on my eyes, or that time I got hypothermia as a child, or that... you get the picture).

Anyways, a little bit of a recap is in order (it wouldn't be a blog without it) as a lot has happened since the last update

• Physio the 2^nd wasn’t overly confident my MRI had been read correctly (by the ”specialist”) due to the length of time I have been laid up. 
• (So)… I returned to the offending hospital, picked up the MRI scans on CD, and trotted out the door to get someone else to read them. 
• (So)…. Armed with the necessary data, Physio the 2^nd managed to squeeze me an appointment with the Irish Consultant who specialises in sports related injuries (Dr Eanna Falvey – Irish runners who have gone through the mill have probably come across him) 
• (So)…. the consultant sees me the following week and spotted issues with the sheeting around my tendon on the MRI scan (it’s a tendon that runs from the calf, through the foot and onwards to the big toe). It appears herein lies the problem and it was all triggered by my insistence on running over the arch after hitting that f^$&*~g stone (no offence geologists, stones are awesome).
• (And So Finally)…. In order to do everything to keep Paris a realistic target, I was elevated up the waiting list (once again) for an appointment in the hospital at 2:30 today (3 days after the referral l).

Here comes the ever-so-slightly embarrassing part; the only way to fit me in was to get the injection in the BIU. When they asked me was I comfortable with getting it done in the hospital’s BIU, I told them sure, no problem, BIU, look for signs for the BIU, gotcha, make it happen, let’s get this puppy on the road. Today I found out that the hospital’s BIU is the ‘Breast Imaging Unit’. Yep, Cork’s only breast imaging unit. Picture the scene, a 30 minute wait, me and 15 women of varying vintages squeezed into a small pinkish alcove. Before us, a pyramid of women’s magazines… fonts of womanly information… Hello, OK, Soap UK,they were all there. Not a Top Gear nor a Golf World amongst them. While I busied myself looking awkward and desperately trying not to catch anyone in the eye, the elderly lady beside me coloured in the areas of her breasts that were of concern to her on her forms. Finally, the nurse arrived came out, “EMER MORRISSEY, is EMER MORRISSEY here”, to which I burst forward but shyly remarked… “Elmer, it’s Elmer Morrissey”…. “ah yes, so it is, my apologies”…  to which I replied… “no bother, it seemed fitting”. 

So here I am, back home, and give or take, it’s 8 and a half weeks to Paris. I am not to run for 6 days. After that, I can load up on runs of increasing length for 1 week (up to around an hour in length). Once that’s out of the way, I can START my training programme. I would welcome any suggestions as to condensing a 3-4 month marathon training programme into 6 weeks… seriously. 

The bet, it’s on hold, it would be naive and probably catastrophic to pursue that target time. That’s ok though, I have a new goal - I want to enjoy my first marathon, I want to soak in the atmosphere, the highs and the lows, the nervous tension of the start as well as the explosion of emotion at the finish. Running the Paris Marathon will be enough.

59 days to Paris.

Is the fog clearing?... actually I don't know!

Ouch… the last time I scribed a rambling, it was 121 days to Paris! That’s a little lot unnerving on many fronts. Anyways, during that time, I have been toying with updating the blog many times; but a conveyor belt of faltering starts on the trails had robbed me of my enthusiasm to relive in detail more frustrated pull ups and depressing walks back to the car. That notwithstanding, much as this frustration embittered me to the blog, I continued to crave a good… solid… long… free… uninterrupted… run! (what did you think I was going to say - naughty).

A chance meeting with a friend last Sunday culminated with a recommendation for a new physio to have an experienced poke. Long story short, I’m ‘kind of’ back running again, with a few caveats – my foot is  heavily strapped up, I’m confined to grassy terrain, and although I can choose the pace (within reason) the duration is restricted to specific periods (these days, no longer than 30-35 minutes). I say this like I’m desperate to run for hours – I’m not. Come the end of my 30 minutes, I’m yelping down air as the lungs and head send conflicting messages to the legs to run a touch faster. BUT, I’m not in pain at the end, I’m aware of tightness and soreness, but not pain. And the strapping is lending me the necessary support. Crutches and restrictions aside, it’s f*cking awesome!

What’s going on, actually, we don’t know. As the MRI didn’t show up anything conclusive bar tissue damage, we’re shooting blind. So, my runs are experiments; the strapping which is pulling in the inside of my foot, together with my own body sensing feedback, are the parameters we’re going to analyse at the end of the week. She’s working on the theory that I’ve pushed a bone out – can’t remember, or even pronounce it, not to mind spell it, so I won’t embarrass myself here with any attempts. But as you look down at my feet, you do notice a bulge inwards on the right foot. It’s rare, but it happens, and the stone story tied to running on the arches would explain how it might happen. Anyway, if her theory is right, there are two potential working outcomes (1) there is no bone damage, and with strapping, I’ll be able to recover/run with mild irritation and soreness, or (2) the trauma was severe and caused bone damage. I don’t even want to think about 2 (I asked, she answered, and I don’t fancy airing what would be next steps) so we’ll work towards theory #1.

Given my penchant for myopic recovery plans in the recent past, I’ll stick to the physio’s sage advice to take it handy as I slowly load up my foot with longer runs at a ‘reasonable’ pace. I’m not jogging, I’m running – that’s all I really wanted anyway. Paris is 50/50 but who cares at this stage. These are my cards I’ve been dealt for this hand of poker. 

Experimental runs they may be, I’m just happy to be out running again.

77 days to Paris (sssshhhhh)