These entries first appeared in the abortive TypePad blog.

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Joint Statement.

The problem is not having nothing to write about, but having far too much. So many majestic horses having bolted, why bother to contain the few that are left behind?

Which reminds me. Did I dream it, or did I once hear some speaker somewhere say:

“It’s no good bolting the stable door after the horse has…. er, itself bolted…”

Maybe I’ve blocked out the metadata in sympathy.

It’s been a rare old few weeks. For the first time since I began the long plod to freedom, six years ago, I’m confronting the possibility that the end is in sight at last. Trouble is, it isn’t the end I’d hoped for. Seriously, I’m wondering if the game is up.

I feel the urge to apologise in advance for the approaching injury talk. Why? I suppose because I occasionally have cause to be suspicious of runners who flunk races on the grounds of a sudden affliction. Better that we’re honest. “I blew it, lads. Too much beer and pizza. Sorry.” A surfeit of those delicacies has doubtless compounded my problems, by adding a layer of lard -- and accompanying lethargy -- but it isn't their cause.

I feel almost moved to create a lack-of-movement movement. The Campaign… no, the Campain for Real Ailments. This scepticism means that I hoist the "I’m crocked" white flag with some self-consciousness. But look, there it is, flapping forlornly in the Brighton breeze. Not that missing the Brighton 10K is a particular loss. I’ll still make it along for that, er, beer and pizza, and the craic, and this will be quite as much fun as the race itself. There are greater worries on the horizon, like the Almeria and Reading Halfs in January and March, and the Boston Marathon in April. I’d already wondered if I should hang up my marathon boots after Boston. I’m now hoping that I have the freedom to make that decision myself, rather than have it made for me. With 23 weeks still to go to Boston, there's no immediate sense of panic, but I'm mindful that I've agreed to run it for charity (the JDRF), and if I'm going to pull out, I should aim to do so before Christmas so that they can find someone else to take the place.

So what’s wrong with me? Annoyingly, I don’t really know. The left knee has been troubling me for a couple of months now, but seems to have got worse in the last three weeks or so. The latest problem started just a few days into yet another relaunch. I’d finally managed a spell of runner cuisine, and had been for a couple of testing walks to check out recovery from the previous problem — my right calf. All was looking good. But then the damn knee popped up again.

Putting any weight on it is enough to produce a small wince. So no running of course, and even my unconscious tendency to bound up any flight of stairs put in front of me has been curtailed.

We all get twinges, but there’s something worrying about this one. It’s persisted, for one thing. But more than that, I sense that I’ve been fortunate with injuries thus far. Very fortunate, given my corpulence, my advancing years, and the thirty years of inactivity that immediately preceded my marathon career. The luck must run out eventually, and why not now? It may be pay-back time.

A proper diagnosis will help. If the news is bad, I may have to accept my new role as a Saga lout, snoozing gently through the long mid-afternoons as I recline on my laurels. One reason I feel more fatalistic about the knee is that it's just the latest in a line of aches and sprains. Did I mention the painful shoulder and neck?

Today, I managed another brisk hour-long walk first thing in the morning, before starting work. Not that a walk is a true test: at one point today, nearly three miles in, I jogged gently across a busy road to avoid death, and instantly, the knee woke up and croaked a murderous hello. To add injury to injury, once I’d got home and started tapping away at the keyboard, I find that my left thumb is throbbing with pain.

What’s going on? Is this what arthritis feels like? Gout? Maybe my change of routine — I mostly work from home these days — is confusing my body. The neck and shoulder problems may well come from spending too long in a non-ergonomically sound chair. (Oh for the Herman Miller Aeron I was lucky enough to have in my previous job. I was spoilt.) Perhaps I’m shutting down; stultifying; sinking into some sort of shadowy sedentary purgatory. Have I entered that long, final waiting room beyond the gates…?

Probably not. So here’s what I’ll do to counter it: an hour’s exercise every day, first thing. Between breakfast and work. A hard walk, a bike ride, an hour of compost-heap-turning or pond completion. Proper grub. No weekend booze (after Brighton) and no Friday night Chinese takeaways. And a trip to the physio. If the news is bad, I may as well uncover it.

Let’s see what a week or two of that will do. On today’s 3.5 mile walk, I asked myself what else I could do if running never came back. Answers came there none.

I need to get this sorted.

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