Ginger and Tumeric

After working so hard on Sunday with my deadlifts etc, I found I was really achy on the Monday. However, I still did my 1 hour of step, and as this is now on the higher 10 inch step, I find I'm quite tired by the end. I could really feel my back throughout, so was looking forward to an afternoon watching films at the cinema. Bank holidays' are exciting in our house! ;-)

Monday night I hardly slept a wink as the pain in my back was quite high, so getting up on Tuesday morning I got Graeme to massage it the way the physio does... I really must start going back to see my physio Tim, as the time seems right now that I'm back into training (of sorts!). Graeme did a half decent job though for now. I couldn't face a heavy training day (which was due for Tuesday) so instead I went for a 1 hour walk and tried to do it as fast as I could. I got to 4.23 miles, so not bad, but I was REALLY aching after that.

I'd been reading about how ginger and tumeric are brilliant for anti inflammatory purposes, and we had had a smoothie with some in on the morning, so I had a recovery drink with it in after the walk. With less fruit (and only the powder versions of ginger and tumeric in the house) I felt like I was drinking curry. Graeme said that I must have been in my element, but I really wasn't. It was manky. We went out and bought the root varieties and they were much much nicer. It didn't help though, so I took good old ibuprofen too... and that didn't help either. I lay in bed on Tuesday night feeling terrible. I could barely move without being in a lot of pain. It reminded me of how I felt after Bangalore, and for a moment or two it made me not want to go back there and do the race again.

Wednesday I felt much better, although had decided to take another day off training. This ended up being changed as I felt better and better as the day went on, so I did my squats (this time much heavier, although 50KG nearly wiped me out), upper body weight session and I did 45 minutes step. I didn't want to do the step and wished there was something else I could do, but it got done all the same. About half way through I began to feel quite tired (I should point out here that I usually split weights and cardio up into two sessions, but the past two weeks I 've done them in one go). I decided to try and visualise something to make me feel cooler and more refreshed so imagined my "Beach thing".

I have a visualisation that I do when I can't sleep, and it involves walking along a beach. I'm pretty good at visualisation and can actually 'feel' things as I imagine them... for instance, I imagine I'm walking down some steps and I'm barefoot. I imagine the ridges of the wood I'm standing on and how cold the concrete feels (as I step onto a section of it) in comparison to the warmed wood from the sun. There's always a blast of sand here and I 'feel' it slightly sting my legs. As I step from the hot deep uneven sand onto the wet flat sand near the sea, I can 'feel' the pebbles underfoot and I can 'feel' how the sand sinks away from my toes as the tide pulls away from my feet.
This is a useful mediation when I can't sleep, so I used it yesterday to imagine how cool the sea was and how it was making me feel cooler (instead of actually sweating in a gym). It worked well, although there is one thing I'm rubbish at when it comes to visualisation, and that's that I can only do it properly for about 1 minute and then can't recreate the feeling in the same sitting. One of these days I'll stop my mind from wandering and hopefully do it for longer!

So, training done, I got Graeme to massage my back for me again, and I had a great sleep last night where I was undisturbed for around 7 hours. Today my back feels brilliant, and as yet, yesterdays' exercises have not had me in any pain. The pain is definitely worth it though... getting back into the exercises is always worst the first 'proper' week I have. Let's put it this way, I know next Sunday will not have me in half as much agony and I'll probably lift heavier weight to boot!

Today is a lovely rest day (well earned I think!) where it's just the sauna. Maybe I should really try hard to visualise myself somewhere lovely and cool and maybe I'll finally manage a full 30 minutes without bailing! That will be a miracle!

I'm also eating well. I made Minnesota bean chilli yesterday and Helen and I are having some for lunch. Graeme had some last night and said it was gorgeous, so I'm looking forward to trying it.