Looked after by....

Looked after by....

Friday 28 April 2017

Getting back to it.

Quick update

Started racing again in January 2017.....currently I have completed more races in the first four months of 2017 than in all of 2016. Hurrah!

Lancashire cross country championships at the start of January lead me to a place on the Lancashire team for the intercounties Xc in Loughborough.  Not bad for a girl.who has only done 5 cross country races in her life.

The Lancashire Fell championship in April managed to provide me with another county vest and an opportunity to represent Lancashire at the Intercounties Fell Championships in Broughton on May 13th.

I am a very happy lady!

My hip and back are coping ok and I am starting to get back to the racing I love so much.

I also managed to win the night fell race on Pendle in March.

A little 10k in Bolton last weekend gave me another sub 40 time. 39.47

So all in all things are going pretty well.

Welcome to 2017!

Friday 14 October 2016

If you cannot be positive then at least be quiet.

It's been a while since I have felt inspired to write anything on my blog. 2016 has been almost a complete waste of time where running is concerned.

2016 so far in numbers -

Weeks with no running - 29
Weeks with running - 10

Since Snowdon - Which was a cracker of a race for me! I was racing well, happy with how I was doing and really enjoying training. Then a few days after Snowdon it all fell apart.

I met Ian and Emily in the Lakes for a play out day running in the hills and my knee didn't feel quite right. I wasn't overly concerned and booked in for some physio as I usually do.

Things just seemed to deteriorate, all of my right side of my body started to feel wrong - Like Mr Potato Head put together all wrong. I was having hip pain, groin pain, back pain and knee pain and I felt all wrong running. I started hammering the core and the physio as usual and I felt better for a few hours after treatment but then the discomfort and pain would return.

August was awful. I couldn't sleep because of hip and back pain, I couldn't pick up Juliet and even biking was causing a lot of pain. I arranged to see the amazing Dr J who has been a phenomenal help to me this year, without him I would still be trying to convince people that there was a problem with my foot and I would still be battling numerous chest infections and deteriorating asthma. I was trying everything that I could to fix this problem and nothing was working at all.

Scans were arranged to see what was going on and Dr J also suggested seeing a chiropractor  - I was very sceptical about this but I would have tried ANYTHING at this point.

Scans and my visit to the Chiro were both arranged for the 20th Sept - Sat in the car driving to the appointment I was feeling pain in my hip and back as usual. After the chiropractor I did feel better but was not sure how long it would last.

I actually had a week feeling a lot better! I still wasn't running as I was told to wait until after the scans. But I had started sleeping better and the pain was less.

Rather than having 7 bad days a week - I was now having 3 bad days and 4 good ones. A significant improvement.

Scans are back and the verdict is a disc bulge at l5/s1 touching the nerve root. It doesn't sound like anything too problematic however the pain that it causes on the days that it is bad is intense.

It tends to feel like someone has kicked me in the backside! Then my groin feels tight and at the same time my hip inside feels constantly odd and tingly but a really uncomfortable feeling. My knee doesn't hurt unless I try to run and then it just burns like mad after 10 mins. On the days it is bad it really gets me down as it just constant pain throbbing. Standing in assembly hurts like mad after ten minutes and I have to leave or sit down. I am constantly changing position to try and stop it hurting. It is frustrating and annoying as when I run nothing hurts except the knee and yet the rest of the time the knee doesn't hurt but everything else does!

I have an appointment next week to discuss what to do and I've started to try a nerve pain killer to see if that can help. Three months off running and I am miserable. I hate the gym and I am fed up it. Biking seems to hurt my back even more, I have even endured some aqua jogging but until I know what the plan is it is hard to motivate myself to train.

So that is why I have been a bit quiet in terms of the running scene and why I haven't been able to do any of the races that I had planned out for summer. It was not how I envisaged things to be.

Hopefully things may start to improve but we shall see.

On the plus side - my trainers stay clean for a bit longer..............




If you cannot be positive then at least be quiet.

It's been a while since I have felt inspired to write anything on my blog. 2016 has been almost a complete waste of time where running is concerned.

2016 so far in numbers -

Weeks with no running - 29
Weeks with running - 10

Since Snowdon - Which was a cracker of a race for me! I was racing well, happy with how I was doing and really enjoying training. Then a few days after Snowdon it all fell apart.

I met Ian and Emily in the Lakes for a play out day running in the hills and my knee didn't feel quite right. I wasn't overly concerned and booked in for some physio as I usually do.

Things just seemed to deteriorate, all of my right side of my body started to feel wrong - Like Mr Potato Head put together all wrong. I was having hip pain, groin pain, back pain and knee pain and I felt all wrong running. I started hammering the core and the physio as usual and I felt better for a few hours after treatment but then the discomfort and pain would return.

August was awful. I couldn't sleep because of hip and back pain, I couldn't pick up Juliet and even biking was causing a lot of pain. I arranged to see the amazing Dr J who has been a phenomenal help to me this year, without him I would still be trying to convince people that there was a problem with my foot and I would still be battling numerous chest infections and deteriorating asthma. I was trying everything that I could to fix this problem and nothing was working at all.

Scans were arranged to see what was going on and Dr J also suggested seeing a chiropractor  - I was very sceptical about this but I would have tried ANYTHING at this point.

Scans and my visit to the Chiro were both arranged for the 20th Sept - Sat in the car driving to the appointment I was feeling pain in my hip and back as usual. After the chiropractor I did feel better but was not sure how long it would last.

I actually had a week feeling a lot better! I still wasn't running as I was told to wait until after the scans. But I had started sleeping better and the pain was less.

Rather than having 7 bad days a week - I was now having 3 bad days and 4 good ones. A significant improvement.

Scans are back and the verdict is a disc bulge at l5/s1 touching the nerve root. It doesn't sound like anything too problematic however the pain that it causes on the days that it is bad is intense.

It tends to feel like someone has kicked me in the backside! Then my groin feels tight and at the same time my hip inside feels constantly odd and tingly but a really uncomfortable feeling. My knee doesn't hurt unless I try to run and then it just burns like mad after 10 mins. On the days it is bad it really gets me down as it just constant pain throbbing. Standing in assembly hurts like mad after ten minutes and I have to leave or sit down. I am constantly changing position to try and stop it hurting. It is frustrating and annoying as when I run nothing hurts except the knee and yet the rest of the time the knee doesn't hurt but everything else does!

I have an appointment next week to discuss what to do and I've started to try a nerve pain killer to see if that can help. Three months off running and I am miserable. I hate the gym and I am fed up it. Biking seems to hurt my back even more, I have even endured some aqua jogging but until I know what the plan is it is hard to motivate myself to train.

So that is why I have been a bit quiet in terms of the running scene and why I haven't been able to do any of the races that I had planned out for summer. It was not how I envisaged things to be.

Hopefully things may start to improve but we shall see.

On the plus side - my trainers stay clean for a bit longer..............