Sunday 25 July: M7 Marathon : 3.47.58

With splits of 1.48 + 1.59 it was garbage. The week before the second half was strong and exhilarating. This one the second half was depressing and like running on sticky tar. The quicker forgotten the better.

Injury update

The Achilles issue has not gone away and it is getting me down. My times are slow because I just cannot put in 140/150k weeks like I have done in the past. When I was injury free those distances in a week week were done easily and the time were 20 minutes faster.

The last Friday I saw a post on CR about Shock Wave Treatment for Achilles issues and with success when other treatments had ailed. This was good news so as we do in this age it was a net search fro some hours - to fins out what it was, how successful it was and what type of injury could be treated. All the information sounded good so the search was then to find if the treatment could be had in Sydney.

This is good Article:

http://painmuse.org/?p=105

That lead me to South Sydney Sports Clinic at Kensington.

I had an appointment on Monday with a physio. That went well and xrays were taken and viewed. I then had an appointment with Dr Grace Bryant OAM a Sports Dr. Her CV is fulof being on Olympic and CTH Games teams as the Dr. Also at the clinic is DR Nathan Gibbs who is well known in Rugby League circles. So it looked liked I was in the right place for experience.

Diagnosis:
Insertional Achilles Tendinopathy - simple terms and inflammation where the Achilles tendon attaches to the heel. So the extreme pain is when you press the bone at the back of the heel NOT when you squeeze the Achilles above the ankle.

Treatment:

• a simple stretch to be done 3 time a day and not the usual stretches that are done for Achilles issues;
• anti inflams for a short while;
• nitrate patches; and
• shock wave treatment (late next week and maybe two more sessions a couple of weeks apart);
• and if all that fails taking blood out spinning and injecting back some of it (forget the name of the procedure)

The DR was very pleasant and informative. She says that the combination of the first 4 should work and I should have a significant improvement in 2/3 weeks. Lets see and hope this issue will just go away.

Consequence of injury:

• reduced training distances and intensity;
• slower race times;
• a concern about being able to compete in any ultra's later in the year because of the inability to run over uneven ground and up and down hills (shown by the inability to make the time in GNW and the very slow time at North Face);
• being 6/7 k overweight !!! Now that will slow you down in any event and add that to a reduction in training and .... so

NEW MONTH

NEW APPROACH

NEW ATTITUDE

NEW AND BETTER RESULTS