Two steps forward and one step back

Just as I was getting back into training and thinking that I might just be able to get fit enough, I got hit by a virus. Some kind person where my wife works played the martyr and went in whilst sick to help spread it around. I would probably have still got it anyway, but I do wish people would at least try to keep their viruses to themselves. A month later and I still have the cough.

There was an interview at the Winter Olympics where someone said a virus was worse than an injury - with an injury, you can usually do some forms of training and retain some fitness, but with a virus you have to stop training completely.

Just got back from a week in Norway - stayed in Lillehammer; local trails were poor condition as it was raining when we arrived, so we took buses up to Sjusjoen and Nordseter. The recommendations I had for a good ski shop in Lillehammer were correct - my wife was even able to get a new pair of waxless skis. On our first day, when it was fairly warm even up on the top, she had the last laugh as I and many of the Norwegians (so it isn't just my poor waxing) struggled to find grip with our waxes.

The snow on the trees leads to some fascinating shapes, as can be seen here

I got a bit of training done - muscles I don't normally have trouble with were a problem, especially going uphill, so I had to break myself in gently - it felt like the running injury was starting to recur. But on a couple of test runs by myself, the speed is still there, so the main questions for the RR are will the leg muscles hold up and have I got the endurance after being unable to train much?

Well there is only way to find out, and that is to go out and do it!

5 weeks and counting down.

The RR is getting seriously close now. Fitness is slowly coming back, and tonight I worked the rowing machine harder than I ever have before. The calorie counter is a bit flattering - 1400 calories burned in an hour - I don't think so. A 16km run in 90 minutes only burns 1200 calories, so I generally divide the rowing machine value by 2.

Yes, the knee joints still ache, but this is now more age than lack of fitness. I treat this all as a rehearsal for old age - after all, old age is contagious - we all get it sooner or later!

I now have to get a long exercise session pretty well every day. Weight is going up as I am putting the muscle back. Just watching "The Jump" - it has Eddie the Eagle as one of the coaches. I have stood at the top of those jumps - real scary, but I have never jumped. The RR passes a couple of hills - a small one in Kuusamo and a set of jumps in Taivalkoski.

In a couple of weeks when I am Lillehammer, I can have a go at some of these - skeleton, 4 man bob (professionally piloted). I am trying to get up the nerve to have ago - at 5G the forces are same as F1 drivers get on many corners.

There is plenty of inspiration for me. Andrew Musgrave, a young British cross country skier won the sprint at the Norwegian championships. And someone I do business with, recovering from serious illness - I hope he recovers to come and do the RR with me one day. It reminds me of one of the skiers in my first RR who had beaten cancer twice. And there is Arthur Gilbert from the running club - the world's oldest triathlete - who can put me to shame. If I can keep going as long as him, then expect me at the RR for at least another 30 years.

Actually my target is to make it to 10 RRs - for my master skier award (6 more years after this year) and I'll see how I go after that.

Now the countdown in earnest

One month on and I am starting to recover some fitness. I am back to doing my 16km Saturday run - taking it gently and not as fast as I normally do.

Today I booked all my travel and will do my usual thing of arriving in Kuusamo a few days early. I am resigned to the fact that because of injury my fitness might not be up to where it should be and I might have to take the coach for a short section on the longest days.

However, this is better than trying to push back to full fitness too quickly. I know that I have completed the RR three times in the past, and it would be a disappointment not to complete every last metre. But I have just learned that my body has limits - it was pushing too hard to gain 35 seconds on my personal best half marathon time that gave me an injury putting me out of action for over 3 months.

I really look forward to seeing so many people who have become my friends over the years - I can recognise at least 15 people for this year's RR1 that I recognise.

Now I will have to add my sponsorship details for Sports Relief and see how much I can manage to raise this year.

0-60 in 12 weeks!

12 weeks to the start of the RR!

And I have only just been able to start any form of exercise after 3 months following an injury. 10 days ago I started by cycling my normal Saturday run; last Saturday I did a quarter of my normal Saturday run - just under 5k out of 16k and last night a mere 10 mins on the rowing machine, and the knee has twinges from it (but that knee does anyway - probably something to do with age).

Yet in 12 weeks time I have to be skiing 60km a day or more (87km for the longest day).

So this will be my hardest challenge yet. I have set myself the target of being able to run my normal 16k by the end of the month, not at my normal speed, but not much more than 10 mins slower, without ill effects. If I can't do this, then I will have to cancel.

The dilemma is how much and how hard to train? If I overdo it to start with, then the setback in time makes it completely impossible, but if I don't start strengthening the muscles, I won't be able to cope. So I think it has to be a question of little and frequent to start with, and doing more lower impact exercise. I do have a new place to run - we have just completed a dressage arena for my wife to train her horses on and this is sand topped by rubber and provides a lovely low impact surface for running on. I can just about get a 100m circuit in. And instead of towing a gate behind the 4x4 to level it, I could try a smaller gate and pull it by hand. This would be good for training to pull sledges (pulks), which we don't do on the RR, but it should strengthen the leg muscles for pushing off the ski, and because you are leaning forward to pull, the angle is closer to that for cross country skiing.

You would have thought that with all the vast amounts of information on the web, there would be plenty about how to recover from leg injuries, but there seems to be very little practical advice. So it is a question of trying to figure it out for myself.

Turning the corner

Until a couple of days ago, I thought that I was going to have to pull out of next year's RR. The leg injury from my half marathon had got worse, not better, over the last few weeks. But in the last couple of days, I have at least been able to walk around. I don't think I have ever been so inactive for this long in my life!

Looking on the bright side, I have discovered a lot about strapping my leg up, which may be useful for skiing, as that is the leg that swells up. I have got some adjustable strapping which I will use on the leg when I start to exercise again. I have still to decide when and how to start exercising in order to get my fitness back. The risk is in starting too early, which would result in a setback, or holding off and then having to accelerate the later training.

Step forward or step back?

Well after a few minutes of gentle exercise last night, it was clear that I most certainly would not be running a half marathon on Sunday.

But today the leg is not too bad, so a small amount of gentle exercise has at least not set me back.

Most runners I know recommend resting, but when you ask how long, no-one has any suggestions.

So now it is a case of figuring out how to exercise and keep fitness without overloading the leg, and how to strengthen the leg long term for skiing anyway. It looks like the rowing machine might be a way of doing some strengthening and fitness without the impact.

I think I can probably manage to get back to running again within another 2-3 weeks, but I can't afford to lose much more than that.

This has confirmed one thing I have long thought - running slightly slower, I can keep going with relative ease for much longer, and trying to get faster is not going to work without a careful programme of more exercise and some weight loss (90kg is not an ideal weight for a runner). So I need to take the plunge and set myself the target of doing a marathon next year, and also accept that having done it once, I am probably never going to do another sub 2 hour half marathon.

One of the news items today was about the F1 drivers, and how weight matters to them. Cars have a minimum weight with the driver. An extra 10kg adds about 0.3 seconds to a lap time. The taller drivers are typically 10kg heavier than the smaller drivers, and no amount of fitness training can get their weight down whilst maintain the strength they need to drive the car.

I mentioned some time ago about nutrition. Well I put three different gels in the top of a freezer set to -21C along with a small USB sized temperature logger and about every 30 mins, I had a feel of each of them (very scientific). Here are the results

Time	Temp	Maxim gel	Mulebar gel	High5 Energygel+
0:00		-	-	-
0:30	-13C	liquid	liquid	liquid
1:00	-15C	liquid	liquid	liquid
1:30	-16C	liquid	liquid	liquid
2:00	-18C	liquid	liquid	Just liquid but starting to go solid at nozzle end
2:30	-17C	liquid	liquid	Almost all solid
3:00	-16C	liquid	liquid	Almost all solid
3:30	-18C	slightly thicker but liquid	thicker but liquid	Pretty much solid - could probably not squeeze out
4:00	-18C	slightly thicker but liquid	thicker but liquid	Pretty much solid - could probably not squeeze out
4:30	-19C	slightly thicker but liquid	thicker but liquid	Solid

 The Maxim gel is bigger than the others and has a screw top, so you don't have to have it all at once. There is another version of the High5 - the IsoGel - which has a higher water content (so you don't have to take water with it). I didn't test this because with a higher water content it would freeze sooner.

 

The temperature is basically around -19C from the outset, but the thermal mass of the measuring device means that it took time to reach the final temperature. The gels are bigger and so have more thermal mass. So all that can really be said is that in -19C, this is the state of them after specific periods in that temperature.

 

The only control I have is that I did take one of the Maxim gels with me on this year's RR and on one of the coldest days at the end, it was still not frozen after about 8 hours. It was only in a belt bag, so not much protection from the cold.

 

The Maxim ones took some tracking down. I must have bought one locally, but no-one seems to have them any more. Eventually I discovered they are Danish and ended up buying a box from the importer.

At least progressing on other fronts, such as nutrition, keeps me looking forward.

Now into October

Well things started well. The Bristol half marathon was in the middle of the month, and this time I was even more determined to get inside my target time. Last year I did it in 2 hours and 2 seconds. I thought I was inside the time, but in setting race pace, I had not allowed for corners and not being able to run the shortest line, and the actual distance covered is another 400 metres.

Anyway, this time I was inside - just over 30 seconds. But a bit of right leg pain for the last couple of miles meant that after the finish, I could barely walk.

10 days later before I tried to run again and had to give up! This is NOT a good start to my training regime, particularly as I am also doing our local half marathon - Burnham on Sea - the first water stop is actually my driveway, so if couldn't be more local - this Sunday (Oct 6th).

But drastic problems call for drastic measures. Last night I had a session with a sports massage therapist. She also suggested taping up my right leg (like you see on the professionals sports men and women). Wow - what a difference! I hobbled in and walked out. And from being 100% sure of not being able to run on Sunday, it might now even be a possibility. It will be a case of setting a slow target time - maybe 2h 15. The objective is not a personal best, but to complete a gentle long run and get my training back on track. After all, I have been unable to train at all for over 2 weeks.

But this taping is quite interesting. Firstly, it is going to be agony taking it off - it should not be on for more than a week. Because I was unprepared, I am taped over quite hairy legs. So before I ever have it done again, I will need to shave my legs. Taping needs to be done by an expert, but is good for 7 days. So when I go for a week cross country ski training in Lillehammer in February, I can get it done the day before I go and see if it makes a difference. The leg currently taped is the one that swells up when pushed hard cross country skiing. Then, although I would have to take it off part way through the RR, at least it would give me the benefit for the last few days training and the first 2-3 days of the RR.

There was a report on the news today that preliminary findings are that for those with heart problems, proper exercise is as effective as drugs, and for stroke patients, exercise is better than drugs. I am beginning to think that as I get older, I need to look after my body more, and on the two occasions this year with injuries, proper sports massage has made such a difference that I am now going to treat it as a regular thing.

Talking of Lillehammer - last night whilst sorting the washing out, I saw most of the Hairy Bikers - doing a trip through Norway. Down to Lom, the first day the road was open (done that one May), and a great bakery in Lom (been there, done that, but not got the T shirt). Then on to Peer Gynt country - a favourite of ours, and one of the best cross country skiing areas ever - around Gala.

 

No-one could fail to enjoy skiing such fantastic countryside. In the pictures here, this February, we skied the large 27km loop. Light fluffy snow overnight had almost filled the tracks, and for half the circuit, we were the first and only ones, until we met first some Danes and then  some Norwegians coming the other way. As the so-called "expert" and fitter skier, I got the job of going first to clear the tracks. Adds a bit of effort, but also fun. Going downhill with 2m long planks strapped to your feet hidden beneath a few inches of fluffy snow is quite an odd feeling.

 

The Hairy Bikers even tried the cheese. The local Gudbrundsdalen brown cheese is unlike anything else you have ever tasted. I see this morning a survey shows that Norway is the second best place in the world to be retired - beaten by its neighbour Sweden. In pretty much every survey of lifestyles - happiest countries etc the Scandinavian countries are at the top of the list. This is despite high taxes, very expensive alcohol and cold winters - the opposite of most Brits dreams (but not mine - mine is to be able to step outside in the winter and ski and step outside in the summer and sail. Maybe I have some Viking blood in me somewhere).

 

So after two weeks of depression after an injury, as sports massage, some tape, and pictures of the fabulous sunny winters days skiing and my spirits are back and I am raring to go again. But I have learned a few lessons - maybe I am not going to get faster as I get older - at least not without considerably more care an training. Perhaps I should look more to slower marathons? And that the older I get, the more I should learn from what the professionals do instead of thinking I am still 23 and invincible - not nearly 60 and creaking!