Advice
Listening to your body
10 October, 2011
The last month has been fun, running again. I so love to run!
I was chatting with a friend last week and she hadn’t really realized that I have had many many injuries. I am quite an encyclopedia of them in fact!
She assumed that because I am a runner I don’t ache or have any pain in my body! I am always striving for that state, but I am also always working with the imbalances and seeking to straighten them out!
I do believe that I have learnt from every injury I have ever had. I have learnt that injuries get better! I have learnt about my body and how to trace where the imbalance is. I have learnt patience! I have learnt about the emotional and psycho spiritual connections with pain in the body and I have learnt that the body is amazing and that its natural state is to be healthy and it seeks to find balance all the time. It is up to us to listen and work out, often with the help of a sports therapist, how best to re-align and to listen to the wisdom of the body and to follow the natural laws.
This has its hazards when a training programme asks that we red-line it!
Following my knee trouble I had resolved that I would X train instead of doing all my training as running training.
I completely ignored this decision as the running started to flow!
From the week of the Budapest ½ marathon I ran mileage weeks of 50 then following the race I ran another 50 then 64 then 71. It was starting to click. Suddenly I felt flowing and fit and strong and was starting to look to where I might be heading, an autumn marathon being out of the question.
I was having regular treatments and everything seemed set fair…
However as I write this, I have had a slightly unexpected week of more rest than I anticipated.
I had finished last week with 18 miles run on a beautiful hot day. I added in some fast stretches, one of which saw me racing along the Cuckmere, two guys were running in front of me and noticing me, they started to race away from me. Normally I don’t race people when I am training, but as I was doing a fast mile and half stretch, this offered me the perfect motivation... The three of us ran and ran along the river, in the hot sun. Racing along was fun and I just caught them up at the gate before they went on and I turned up through the village and towards the Friston Forest.
So after this tougher week, and having chatted it over with Joe Beer, an easy week to get the benefit of those past weeks was planned. Monday went well, a good weights session where I felt strong and loved it – I noticed a man was watching me train, he even stopped his own training and stood watching me doing my chins to the bar ‘You’re a strong woman! - I used to be able to do that’ he said ‘with a weight around my waist (mental note to self that I want to progress to that!)
‘But you train very hard’ I said ‘I‘m 80 years old ‘ he replied ‘I used to be a professional wrestler’ He was in the era of Big Daddy and Haystacks, he told me his wrestling name was ‘the Emperor’ and ‘I used to wear a mask’ I felt inspired and resolved that I will still be weight training when I am 80 – (God willing I am still here!)
Tuesday I met my friend Fi to run our 12 mile loop on the Downs. We were running along loving the run talking talking when suddenly my knee did a spasm! I leapt in the air a bit and instantly stopped running. Fi and I walked along the road for a hundred yards or so and all seemed well...
We ran home and I felt no more pain at all!
However later in the day it stiffened a bit and so I decided I needed some treatments and took a couple of days off, Friday and Saturday all seemed well, but on Saturday it stiffened up after running and so today I went up on the concept 2 rowing machine.
4 years ago I was struggling with my back and I trained for a marathon mainly on the concept 2!
Remembering this, on one of the hottest days of the year, instead of going for my long run, I walked up to the gym which was surprisingly packed!
I Loved the session and there was no aggravation to my knee, later in the day I did an intensive yoga session and remembered that once again the issue is in my left hip and resolved once again that I will X train and concentrate on the yoga too.
I intend to put together a really comprehensive training programme that supports me getting fit but unraveling the areas where I am stuck
I have a big reason to make sure that I balance and get strong and fast and fit.
I wasn’t sure where I was heading next – and so I was searching around marathons in the world last Friday and came upon one in Freetown Sierra Leone, the place of my birth.
I was born in 1959 and we left Sierra Leone in 1962 to return to the UK – 50 years later I will return and compete in the first Freetown Marathon - the biggest marathon in West Africa