Running blog - @thetone trains

13:07 - a 31 second improvement on last Sunday’s 3km tempo run.

And what’s even better? I didn’t feel my knee at all.

Let’s hope this is the start of the road to a comeback from injury!

So damn cruisey!

So cruisey I turned up 30 minutes late for a 30 minute lesson!

DIARY FAIL.

I’ve got my first swimming class up soon.

No doubt I’ll be shown up by small people a fraction of my age!

13:38 - the time I ran my 3km run in this morning. My max distance right now :(

On the plus side, I did push my tempo pace and barely felt any tweak in my knee. I did feel it a little on my walk home however. I’m currently icing my knee as per usual.

#whenwillthisbeover

I’ve been overseas for the lat 10 days having a great but doing no exercise. I went to the USA - San Francisco, Atlanta and New York.

Of the many highlights, meeting the Coca Coa Polar Bear at the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta was right up there:

Fair to say, I’m not loving the jetlag. I was wide awake at 3am this morning so went out for a 3km run.

I ran at a good pace in the dark and my knee felt fine for the most part. I felt a little discomfort about 2.5km, but it was brief and didn’t stick around:

Now I’m back into the routine, I’ll be able to continue my very slow return to some decent distance running. It’ll take months though :(

This week has been my birthday week. Tuesday was the day (and I just happened to share with the Boston Marathon tragedy).

Despite the many birthday celebrations, I did squeeze in a quick gym session yesterday. Glutes and hammys were worked hard.

Damn this injury - I don’t have much to tumblog about. I am going overseas this weekend though so I’ll hopefully have some hotel gym updates to share. Get excited!

Really sad to hear about the events at the Boston Marathon. Stay safe everyone and our hearts go out to you.

After a rare boozy weekend, I did some interval training with my not-nearly-as-fit-as-me mate this afternoon.

I tried to push the pace but my motivation shout outs went down like a lead balloon. “30 seconds to go, let’s push it” didn’t cut the mustard today.

Nevertheless, the pace was reasonable and I only felt my knee briefly when I was crisscrossing during a rest phase.

This week has been a write off in terms of exercise. I’ve done all of no exercise! The social life well and truly took over.

Having said that, I did have a sports massage on Monday, and I’ve been on the roller and doing stretching. Not completely inactive.

I’m planning on doing an interval run on Sunday after our house party Saturday night. Going to need to work that off!

Wow it felt good to be out there running this morning. It’s been a long, hard 5 weeks.

While it was only 5km, and interval training at that, it was still a great feeling.

I actually ran a little too far (5.69km).  I set out to do:

30 minute run
3 minutes at race pace
2 minutes at recovery pace

Repeated until I hit the total time.

I felt my knee on the final recovery 2 minutes (i.e. after 5km) but not to a great extent.  That’s a good indication I definitely need to run sub-5km for the time being.

Here are my splits:

I might be injured at the moment but I want something to aim for.

In September, the scenic Coastal Classic trail run takes you through the Royal National Park south of Sydney over 29km.

I’ve done this route informally once, as a training run, and would love to do the actual race.

I’m still yet to compete in a trail race so with a bit of luck, this could be my first.  We’ll see…!

Course elevation:

Course map:

With the exception of one trial 5km run, it’s been 5 long weeks since I took a break from training.

It’s been frustrating to say the least, but I’ve got a new friend:

A spikey massage ball.

So what’s been happening?

Mostly…

• Glute strengthening and stretching in the gym
• Swimming
• Foam rolling

What about that MRI scan you had?

That was loud! But also confirmed a a couple of things.

• I don’t have a major injury in my knee
• But I do still have mild inflammation of my IT Band and Bursa

And now? Where to from here?

One step at a time.

My plan for the next 2 weeks is…

• Take a course of Mobic anti-inflammatory medication. If you haven’t had it before, far out it hits you for 6. I had my first dose last night and felt it within 10 minutes! Not sure how long I’ll do it for as it makes me feel like crap
• Continue the gym and swimming
• Do 2 runs per week, sub-5km
• Daily clam exercises to practice activating my glutes
• Spikey ball massages 3 times per week

Are you doing anything new?

Yes! I signed up to swimming classes for the next 3 months. I figure if I can’t run much, I can sharpen up my triathlon credentials.

What about races this year?

Well my new year’s resolutions will take a hit.

I probably can’t do the Great Ocean Road Half now, but I have registered for the City2Surf (August) and Coastal Classic (September).

Will you blog about your rehab more often?

Yes. Sorry - it’s been pretty depressing having a relatively major setback to my training.

I’m getting back to thetonetrains form though so bear with me :)

I just had my first ever MRI scan and it wasn’t what I expected.

It took a while getting to my appointment because I was in the wrong hospital for 30 minutes! It was deadly quiet and I couldn’t find the department not anyone to talk to. Lucky a doctor leaving for the night saw me.

It’s loud, long, you have to remain still and wear industrial-strength earphones.

Apparently, my 15-minute scan was short and not as loud as it gets!

I’ve got my pictures in hand so I just need to make another specialist appointment to have them interpreted.

Fingers crossed whenever that happens, it’s all good.