Yesterday I had a go on the treadmill. I was worried, I don't mind telling you. I began by walking for a minute, made sure it felt OK and then moved the speed up to a slow run. All the time I was assessing the situation... did it feel like this the last time I tried? Is the stiffness in my foot inevitable after all it has been through? Is that metatarsal pad irritating and should I take it off?.... Yes, it was irritating. I paused the treadmill (how cool is that... it can be paused) took the pad off my foot and started up again. It was much better. The stiffness was mostly around my first metatarsal (big toe) which got better as the run went on. I chose to run around 3 minutes and walk for 1 and I think it was the right thing to do. I have definitely lost fitness... but what else should I expect?
After reaching 2 miles at a snails pace, I stopped and immediately iced my foot. Not that I felt it needed icing... just over cautious I suppose! My foot really felt great... it felt back to normal and looking at my calender I realised it was probably the best part of 3 months since my foot felt this good.
We went to a charity ball on Saturday night and I wore flip flops (how sad is that?) but my foot was fantastic for the whole night and even getting up this morning I had walked around bare foot for a while before realising there was no pain at all. What a great sign!
Tonight I have decided not to do my deadlifts... and I'm not sure if I will do squats this week either. It's a lot of weight bearing on my foot so I really need to make sure I don't go and bugger it all up now. This week I will be doing all of my runs on the treadmill and will probably run/walk them... I need to give myself the best chance of getting this sorted and put it all behind me. I'm really confident I'm on the road to recovery now and it's only 6 weeks to Basel. If I feel up to it, I will do a long run on the treadmill next Saturday and then progress to outside running the following Monday.
And I used my scales this weekend. Can't believe I'm about to share this information (it's almost as bad as telling everyone your age... or your vital statistics or something!) but what the hell... here goes...
Weight 9 stone 11.8, BMI 23.5, Bodyfat 27%, Water 53%, Muscle mass 33.1%, Visceral fat 7. Apparently these are all in the "optimal for my age and height" range, which is most unfair as for a man the optimal range in bodyfat terms would be 15%. It's so unfair... blokes don't know how lucky they are sometimes!
So... I will do the same thing every Sunday and see what happens as my running gets going again!
I'm feeling very positive about everything. Not being able to run for so long has really put things into perspective for me. It made me realise that just being able to run at all is a gift in itself... how many people would love to run but for one reason or another can't. I realise there are many people out there who probably think I'm a right silly cow the way I go on about running/not running/injuries/training/not training/what I spend on running shoes/what I spend on running full stop/entering ultras/being gutted because I have to bow out of ultras due to injury... the list goes on really! But it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. I know I'm a daft cow... but I wouldn't have it any other way, and I suppose that's why everyone just puts up with me! :-)
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