Hold on to your Friends

Friday

Any runner will tell you that you have to take the good with the bad. It's maxim that translates to any sporting activity where the physical ability of the body is required for the task. At age 50, I am well aware of the frailties of the human body, especially mine.

So, it is with some concern that I sit here at week 1 of a 20 week training plan for Melbourne Marathon, with ice strapped to my right calf. It is a sensation that I am all to familiar with, having suffered the exact same injury to the left calf in 2008. That time I was out of running for nearly 14 months. (I needn't have been, but a series of miss diagnoses, incorrect advice, and too much caution from me spread a 4 to 6 week injury out to 14+ months.)

So, short term, no running at all. Medium to long-term, trip to physiotherapist on Monday will determine the extent of the injury. My self-diagnosis is grade 2 tear at the Achilles/Soleus transition. A sod of a place to treat. I know; as I've said before, I've been there. So now I have a race against time, and initial expectations of potential times for Melbourne will have to be re-assessed. 

How did it happen? Doing one-legged uneven weight arm swings for core strength, and to correct my arm swing, which is across the body rather than front-to-back. Over-balanced, and rather than just putting my other foot down, I tried to maintain balance and ended up twisting on my lower leg. Never felt anything 'go', just woke up on Friday morning with a sore spot that got worse as the day progressed.

But as bad as that news is for me personally, it pales into insignificance the rest of my week. Bad news piled on bad news, culminating in a friend of 20+ years telling me she has breast cancer. 2 operations, and with chemotherapy to come, her struggles are potentially life-threatening. Makes my week seem insignificant. Such an insidious and indiscriminate disease is cancer.

So at the end of a particularly shitty week I was in a mood that ranged from foul to downright morose. Normally I am pretty well up all the time (occasional bouts of running self-doubt notwithstanding), so it was from this normal high that I crashed to a low that I am not familiar with. Not being able to run only compounded the sense of despair; running is therapy, therapy clears my head, with head cleared I can confront most of what life throws my way. I struggled to contain my bleak mode from my wife and son, not wanting to burden them with what was mostly very personal stuff.

Saturday

Dinner with friends, the best tonic after a crappy week.
Note how the restaurant has cleared out!
 We stayed a bit late.

Mood hadn't lifted much in the morning and I was faced with a decision. A dinner had been organised with a group of trail running friends who I have met since moving to Victoria. They are great company; positive, friendly and good to be around. But such was my mood, I didn't want to go and be in a bad mood all night. Nicky urged me to go, said it would do me good. Probably wanted me out of the house, such a ray of sunshine that I was!

Thankfully another friend also weighed in, wanting me to go as well. I am very grateful to both as it was a great night! So easy to just blend in, have many different conversations with everyone and forget about troubles beyond the walls of the restaurant. I feel very fortunate to have fallen in with such a great crowd of people, just made me realise how much I enjoy my time with them.

Monday

Work got off to a far better start, even if it was just the fact that it wasn't last week! Trip to physio revealed that the injury wasn't as bad as first feared. As much to do with my aggressive application of ice, strapping, massage, and Nurofen to reduce the swelling. What had, at the time, seemed like a potential month or two on the sidelines, had now turned into a week to 10 days. I was one very relieved runner. It would have been a very shitty way to have ended my return to Melbourne.

Epilogue

So now it is Wednesday night and things seemed to have settled down again. Sorry about the personal blog this time. Needed to not just deal with the highs, the lows are also part of a runners lot to deal with. The fact that it coincided with a number of personal issues just compounded it. The good thing to come out of Saturday night was that a number of us are going to compete in relay teams at the Surf Coast Century run in September. Even better than racing trail races?, doing it as part of a team!

Postscript

Thursday: trip to the physio. brings good news, I can run tomorrow.

Until next time...