September 1st!! Where is the time going? Summer over and all the kids back in school. I returned to work this week after a few weeks off after my surgery. Have to say its good to get back to some sense of normality. I got my stitches out my leg removed yesterday and the wound has healed nicely.
My tibialis is still sore when I dorsiflex my foot and I also feel a bit of pain in the lateral compartment but day by day things are improving.
I have been cycling most days for the last 2 weeks. I started off very easy at the start with 10 and 15 minute cycles and now I am up to 40 mins at around 18 miles per hour, or so the exercise bike says. The main thing is that I’m mobilising my ankle joint and using the muscles a little bit in the process. I’m also getting the heart rate up too. Yesterday I got my heart rate up over 170 bpm for the last 15 mins, which felt tough but I love it! In fact, the hardest part is not coping with the heart rate – I’m used to that from years of training and I thrive on it. The hardest part is getting used to pain in my ass from the saddle! The saddle on the bike is quite hard and I can feel it right on my Ischium bones (sitting bones). That goes away after a while though. Just takes some getting used to. Its kind of like when you start to learn to play the guitar and your fingers are so sore and sometimes red raw, but eventually your body adapts!
So, where am I at with the injury? I saw the surgeon yesterday and got the stitches removed, as I said already. He thinks that the wound has healed well although there is still quite a bit of swelling and bruising in the area. I still have some trouble moving the ankle around so to help me do this I have taken it upon myself to regularly draw the letters of the alphabet with my ankle in order to strenghten the area up, get some blood into the area and also to mobilise the ankle. I am seeing a physiotherapist at the sports surgery clinic in Santry on Friday. He deals specifically with rehab after fascia operations. I’m hoping I can get strong again and start to jog in about 5 weeks. I’m just praying that when i start back the pain is gone or has decreased somewhat.
Keith Kelly was home for a few days last week and I drove up to his house on Monday to see him. Its always great to see him and his family. As per usual, we ended up yapping for hours about music, running, cycling, and a few other things. Myself and Keith have had lots of injuries and neither of us have ran much since Irish National Cross Country Champs in March 2009. Keith won that day and I was 3rd and we both did a cool down on the track in Santry after the race and talked about the possibilities for the year and how we both wanted to run Euro Cross in Dublin in December 2009.
My point is that we couldn’t have known then that we would barely run for the rest of the year and that people never know what is down the road. We have to enjoy everything as much as we can while it happens because we don’t know what tomorrow brings. I remember the day after I won the National Cross Country Champs in 2006 I went for a run with my old coach Dick Hooper. As we were running Dick said to me “enjoy this moment because you don’t know what’s down the road and you never know when you might win another national title”. I remember thinking “yeh right, I’m not resting on my laurels, I’m gonna win another 2 or 3 of these in the next few years”, but Dick was right. I haven’t won it since and have spent more time since then sidelined than competing. Its a funny ould world, as they say!
Well, that’s all folks! Back into the gym today for some more biking and sweating!
more about
My tibialis is still sore when I dorsiflex my foot and I also feel a bit of pain in the lateral compartment but day by day things are improving.
I have been cycling most days for the last 2 weeks. I started off very easy at the start with 10 and 15 minute cycles and now I am up to 40 mins at around 18 miles per hour, or so the exercise bike says. The main thing is that I’m mobilising my ankle joint and using the muscles a little bit in the process. I’m also getting the heart rate up too. Yesterday I got my heart rate up over 170 bpm for the last 15 mins, which felt tough but I love it! In fact, the hardest part is not coping with the heart rate – I’m used to that from years of training and I thrive on it. The hardest part is getting used to pain in my ass from the saddle! The saddle on the bike is quite hard and I can feel it right on my Ischium bones (sitting bones). That goes away after a while though. Just takes some getting used to. Its kind of like when you start to learn to play the guitar and your fingers are so sore and sometimes red raw, but eventually your body adapts!
So, where am I at with the injury? I saw the surgeon yesterday and got the stitches removed, as I said already. He thinks that the wound has healed well although there is still quite a bit of swelling and bruising in the area. I still have some trouble moving the ankle around so to help me do this I have taken it upon myself to regularly draw the letters of the alphabet with my ankle in order to strenghten the area up, get some blood into the area and also to mobilise the ankle. I am seeing a physiotherapist at the sports surgery clinic in Santry on Friday. He deals specifically with rehab after fascia operations. I’m hoping I can get strong again and start to jog in about 5 weeks. I’m just praying that when i start back the pain is gone or has decreased somewhat.
Keith Kelly was home for a few days last week and I drove up to his house on Monday to see him. Its always great to see him and his family. As per usual, we ended up yapping for hours about music, running, cycling, and a few other things. Myself and Keith have had lots of injuries and neither of us have ran much since Irish National Cross Country Champs in March 2009. Keith won that day and I was 3rd and we both did a cool down on the track in Santry after the race and talked about the possibilities for the year and how we both wanted to run Euro Cross in Dublin in December 2009.
My point is that we couldn’t have known then that we would barely run for the rest of the year and that people never know what is down the road. We have to enjoy everything as much as we can while it happens because we don’t know what tomorrow brings. I remember the day after I won the National Cross Country Champs in 2006 I went for a run with my old coach Dick Hooper. As we were running Dick said to me “enjoy this moment because you don’t know what’s down the road and you never know when you might win another national title”. I remember thinking “yeh right, I’m not resting on my laurels, I’m gonna win another 2 or 3 of these in the next few years”, but Dick was right. I haven’t won it since and have spent more time since then sidelined than competing. Its a funny ould world, as they say!
Well, that’s all folks! Back into the gym today for some more biking and sweating!
more about