bye bye IMNZ & IMA?

Well things have been busy with all the shortbreads, turkey, wine, beer and other festive foods requiring consumption but only one more night of pigging out.

I started off the Christmas eve with a brick session of a 7km run to the pool and a swim. Things were going well but this run was one that was not to be. While running over, my left calf became cramped and all the stretching could not fix it. Being over half way to the pool (and the fact the family was going to meet me there) I carried on. The pain moved from my ankle to my calf, up to my knee and then back to the calf, all in a matter of a couple of minutes. Then without warning, it got very sore. Too sore to walk. Initial diagnosis, is a muscle tear.

That was a week ago, and I've been walking with the aid of strapping tape and the odd pain killer. I have an appointment with the specialist on the 15th of January, so we'll see how things go. In the back of my mind, I know that at minimum IMNZ is out and possibly IMA. Depending on how things go and what I'm told I can do, we'll see what the new year brings.

It's amazing how once you believe you can't do something, the more you want to do it.

I'm going to try and do some swimming with the pull buoy and paddles and do some core workouts to try and keep some form of training going until I hear more. Here's hoping.

Back home some of my friends are getting ready to do the Disney Goofy run. It's a half marathon on the Saturday followed by a marathon on the Sunday (or vice versa). Either way, nuts no matter which way you put it. Good luck guys and have a great time.

That's about it for me, so all the best and Happy New Year.

back into social training

Really what is it that makes us get up as some crazy hour of the morning, put on lycra and do some exercise? You could say because it's actually cooler at that time of day (temperature folks...lycra is not cool anytime of the day). But seriously, when you look at it, it's friends, coffee and the chance for smack talk ;-)

I've been back at it again for a couple of weeks with last week topping out at 8 sessions, or about 12 hours of training...not too bad considering I'm not training for anything. Friday mornings are the highlight of the week with a social river loop ride/coffee/bs session. This week I rode in to meet the gang for a 5:30am start over in the west end. My alarm was off at 4am and man am I trained. Off it goes, out of bed, changed and gone...on the road by 4:15....4.15!?!?!?!? am I that desperate for a cup of coffee? Aparently so. Before work started I'd done about 70kms and it was allot of fun. Even though this week the river loop was sub 1 hour (35km loop) I felt okay and even gave a couple of the hills a crack, not too bad for this old fart.

The other fun part of the week is my Saturday morning run with Vaughn. He hops in the jogger and today I was sarinaded with 'old macdonald' for the first half...That and every person and dog we passed, there was a little voice saying hi. Even though it was really humid today we did manage to take off 3 minutes compared to last weeks effort (mostly due to the fact I ran up the last big hill this week).

I think I'm going to keep going at this pace for a bit and see what happens. To try and add another 4 sessions per week and most likely another 6 or 7 hours, just doesn't appeal to me right now.

See you out there.
Richard