12 Weeks. Argh!!!

I saw my lovely Osteopath, Sue, yesterday. I called her during the week and asked her to step me through an achilles strengthening and stretching program and she said she'd look into it for me and squeezed me in Saturday morning. I've been taking too much time off work lately for various injury related appointments so a Saturday morning appointment was a luxury.

She showed me two simple exercises I have to do, up to 3 times per day, daily, for 12 weeks. All the research she came across pointed to patients having the greatest success (ie return to their sport of choice with no further consequence) if they keep up the exercises and don't run for 12 weeks. Did I mention it will be 12 more weeks before I can start running again? 12 weeks, argh!!! That will be a good Christmas present.

The only consolation was that she didn't charge me, insisting that she had learnt something and that was far more valuable to her than a few dollars from me. What a gem.

So, 12 weeks eh? That will bring me up to Christmas. Why oh why didn't I do all this weeks, no, months ago???

Time to think about some tentative goals... 23km Great Ocean Road Half Marathon in May, 30km You Yangs Ultra Marathon (not that I'm trying to claim 30km is an ultra, the event has a 50 mile and a 50km category and I'll be doing the shorter option) and the Melbourne Marathon in October. Will 2010 be the year of the marathon?

This morning I walked 7km with Bec and Claire and Claire's dog Roger and my sweet mutt PB along The Strand from Newport to Williamstown and back. My right ankle really began to hurt at about the 5km mark and was about 4/10 by the time we got to the car but it has dropped back to a 1/10 over the course of the day. I just took both dogs out for a walk, and it's feeling OK. Good to know where my limits are at the moment.

I forgot to switch my Garmin off after the walk so apparently I did 40km+ today in 9 hours. Ooops!

Still on that long s l o w road to recovery

The cortisone injection has done its job well on my right achilles and I am no longer walking sideways like a deranged crab in the morning. Progress. Yay!

I did a 6.5km walk at the You Yangs on Sunday and didn't get so much as a peep out of either achilles. Progress. Yay!

But on Monday I was walking around the office and feeling an unfamiliar sensation - muscle pain. What's this? Sore muscles from a wee little walk in the bush? Oh dear, serious loss of fitness and conditioning. Makes it so much harder to get started when you know how far back you've slid! But I must focus on the forward bits 'cos I will be fit and fab by the end of the year. Yay!

I went and saw the sports doc last week and he's happy with the results. Now I have to get an eccentric stretching program, and not the unusual kind. So I called my Osteopath and she is going to show me what to do on Saturday. If I'm still in some pain when I get back from Korea, he'll consider a plasma injection in the left one. But it really is feeling so much these days. Maybe it's the rest, maybe it's the terror of witnessing the right one get it good from a needle that's had a placebo effect!

I'm still very tight and sore in my soleus and calf and if I dare probe a little further, all the way up my ITB and into my lower back. Hopefully the Osteo will sort me out. As a result, I haven't started running yet but am sensibly consoling myself with chocolate.

I am going to Korea in 9 days time, so I figure I won't start running until I get back. I promise I will do my eccentric exercises twice a day as recommended every day while I'm away.