Tuesday 17 February 2009

Hello again! Once more I have been a little lax with my 'blogging', for which there is a good reason. I haven't really got much to blog about, at least not in terms of progress. It's all a bit crap really.

Since the last time I was on here I've actually become less fit, if such a thing was possible. I'll explain why.

You know this torn muscle, or whatever it is, that the physiotherapist concluded was the cause of all the chest discomfort? It turns out, at least for want of a better, more medically astute and grounded observation, that it's spread. I know the tear itself hasn't really spread, but the disomfort has, and I think it's because the original injury wasn't necessarily confined to that particular problem area. Given that the physio was oohing and aahing throughout the last session in a way that a paleontologist might do if he had unexpectedly come across a fossil of something impossible, or a dentist might when presented with a mouth containing three times the normal amount of teeth, then I'm not exactly surprised all is not as simple as I'd hoped.

She was perplexed by the state of my shoulder area, and the causes of it, and I think I now know the answer and could set her mind at rest. I think my entire thorax, along with my arms and potentially my abdomen, if not my entire body, is screwed. I really can't think of any other word to describe it. (Actually I can, and did, but I've changed it, months later. So there.) I sneezed a couple of times yesterday and it felt like I'd just fallen off a really high wall.

Everything above my diaphragm feels, when I'm running, like a suitcase full of wet towels resting on everything below it. I get out of breath in seconds, as opposed to minutes back when I was just starting to 'get fit'. Hannah jumped on my stomach the other day and my throat started to hurt. How the hell does that happen? I feel like that bloke in the Operation game, only all my organs etc have been forced back into the wrong places by a bored maniac and now, if I eat too much, I get liver ache and I can't move my arms.

Obviously this is causing me quite a bit of concern, bearing in mind I'm due to be running 26 miles in just over 100 days. The way it's going that statement could be true in more ways than one. It's really getting me down, now. I really don't want to fail, and whatever happens I'm going to complete the 26 miles anyway, I hope, but just doing that won't be enough. I could have walked that far 6 months ago, with a bottle of wine and a couple of packets of cigarettes. I have to run it, or it's not a marathon. It's just a really long walk. With maybe a little bit of jogging when I get the feeling someone's watching.

See, I could go to the gym now, but it barely seems worth it today. There's a lightbulb needs changing in the hall and I'm almost scared of doing that, lest I lose my balance from the exertion or rip a tendon.

(I'm now slightly embarassed that I used the word 'lest' in the last sentence, but I'm too tired to do anything about it.)

Maybe this is all to do with my core fitness, as Scott suggested months ago. He said I needed to get it up, so to speak, but I was hamstrung by the torn muscle. Maybe my lack of core fitness is the key - perhaps I should have done less running and more of the boring stuff (cos running isn't at all boring) like stretches and jumps and so on. Perhaps I've run before I can run.

I'm at a loss as to what I can do. It seems ridiculous that anyone could be too unfit to get fit, but life is ridiculous sometimes. I never felt particularly unfit or incapable before. Now I feel nothing but. I don't want to be the inflatable boy who takes a pin to his inflatable school, but I'm afraid I'm going to be doing a good impression of him come May 30th.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

However long the night the dawn will break again !!! You know this!