As the last post correctly predicted, December has consisted almost entirely of sessions on the elliptical trainer interspersed with the odd bike ride and even the occasional brisk walk when all other options were exhausted. The elliptical trainer in particular became an exercise in extreme base training, with one a total of 28 hours completed on it, with last week seeing five two hour sessions in as many days – topped off with a couple of bike rides over the weekend.
Effort wise I think this exceeds what I’ve attempted when running. It seemed to help with the cycling – a club ride saw me strong on any hills we faced, then a ride to the In-Laws (Albeit wind assisted) saw me break my average speed record for a 2 hour plus ride, grimly attempting to keep in excess of 20mph when the final ten miles saw me hit a head wind. That headwind I had in spades yesterday when I cycled home for Christmas. Feeling grim anyway because of a tummy bug, the headwind or sometimes crosswind on the Lincolnshire fens made the going ridiculously hard and not a little dangerous, especially when lorries passed at great speed -seeing me blown all over the place and perilously close to the ditches looming by the side of the road. Totally lacking in energy the ride was pretty miserable and I couldn’t wait for it to end, which it finally did three hours after I set off.
Ideally I would have started running last week, but literally at the eleventh hour my long awaited physiotherapy appointment was cancelled until today (Christmas Eve). I had my bone density scan though last week and was awaiting the results. Fortunately I was able to get both when I saw the physiotherapist this morning (She has access to on-line records the GP seemingly has not). It showed that there is nothing wrong with my bone density, which came as a great relief. She put the fracture down to ‘One of those things’ and after some checks and some more core stability exercises to perform, gave me the all clear to commence running once again.
Not wishing to look to keen, I gave it an hour before I donned the running kit and prepared to head out for a run for the first time in over two months. The reality is it took longer for the Garmin to get a satellite lock than the duration of the run – which I chose to keep at just one minute (Hopefully tomorrow I will run for 2:30, then 5 minutes, 10, 15. 20 then 30 and 10 minute increments up to an hour).
The minute went pretty quick, not really long enough to get into my running. Things felt stiff (more from the efforts of yesterday’s ride than anything) but fundamentally there was no discomfort in the sacrum area, so I could breathe a sigh of relief when the minute came to an end. I would have done a session the elliptical trainer but my body really needs a few days rest so a minute’s running will suffice.
The moment I’ve been waiting for for months had passed without fanfare or incident. There is 123 days until the 2015 London Marathon. The road to Sub 2:45 starts here!