Ouch

Today has consisted of a series of ouch moments. The day started with my weekly session with Duck. We're still focusing on my upper body in the lead-up to Ruth's 60th birthday and the debut of the little halterneck dress. As I've said before, I asked for pain, and I received it.

We were particularly brutal to my shoulders today. After eight sets of shoulder weights I was definitely feeling the burn. The final insult to my poor deltoids, however, was the sets of hovers on the bosu ball. For once it wasn't my abs giving in - it was my arms refusing to hold me upright.

A perfect day and over-optimism led to me sneaking out of work at 11.30 for a scheduled one-hour run. I wanted to avoid the interruption of too many traffic lights, so headed back up Molesworth, Tinakori and Thorndon Quay. I turned around at Spotlight as a Northerly hit me in the face.

I was running quite slowly, but feeling relaxed and my breathing was calm. It appears that the 15 minute "I want to stop" moment has morphed into the 20 minute "I want to stop" moment. It wasn't that I was feeling particularly bad, just that my mind was telling me that this was all too much effort.

I distracted myself to the 30 minute point, and it all started getting easier after that. Ironically, as I approached the 40 minute mark, I was starting to feel really good. I was lulled into a false sense of security.

I stopped by the railway station to cross over onto the waterfront, and had to wait a couple of minutes for the lights. As I went to run off my knee just absolutely gave in on me. I felt a huge pain, and I found myself unable to put any pressure on it. I walked to the footpath, stopped for a second, then tried to run on. I quickly realised that this time I was not going to be able to run through the pain. I finally saw sense and quit before I did myself any further damage.

Cursing I hobbled back to Capital Sports, grabbed an instant icepack, and iced my knee while making an appointment to see my physio tomorrow. Then I hobbled back to the gym, moaned to Gary and the others on reception for a little bit, showered and hobbled back to work.

A couple of hours later I was being put through the third 'ouch' inducing session for the day - a one hour sports massage with Dale. My back felt fine, but my right quad is REALLY tight, and both gluts were pretty locked up as well.

To Dale's credit I am walking on this knee okay at the moment, and feeling only a little pain. At its worst after some of my previous runs I would not have been able to bend it. However I realise that Foxton is pretty much a no goer. I'd cry bitter tears of frustration, but there's not really much point, is there?!

Instead I'm going to get to the pool for a swim tomorrow before work, and get out Lola for a ride on Saturday. I guess it'll be swimming and cycling probably until Christmas. My life as an athlete is not over - it's only parts of it that are going to be curtailed.

On the plus side, it's a gorgeous evening and there's Margharitas to be drunk. Happy birthday Yetimon!!