Hamstrung

 I am the laziest person in the world and am hanging my head in shame as I type this.  I have lots of excuses - some of which are more valid than others.  It's nearly 4 weeks - FOUR WEEKS! since I last wrote.  It all started to go wrong after the long long jubilee weekend.  We had a fab fab time camping and canoeing in the rain in the Wye Valley.  My friend Murray made the most amazing homemade pork pie and I experimented with coronation chicken pies which were not too bad even though I say so myself.

 We found the most amazing campsite with a pub attached and kept out of the rain until the wee small hours being entertained by the landlord.

 The rain finally abated and we headed out onto the river in our canoes - all my workouts with Mark had prepared me for the arm and shoulder workout of 4 hours on the river (although we did have a little pub break at lunch time).  In reality the paddling wasn't very strenuous but the manhandling the canoe out of the river was.  Day2 was a bit more rainy and involved facing the rapids which was alot less terrifying than we had anticipated.

However 4 days of drinking and being damp and surrounded by people's snuffles took its toll and I went down with a lurgy that meant I had to cancel my post holiday training session.  I was so ill that I had to go out to dinner and couldn't drink!

I managed to drag myself out for a very windy weekend sailing and noticed a niggle in my right leg.  Being a typical drama queen and a bit of a hyperchondriac I had half persuaded myself I had DVT in my right calf and then as it got more and more painful possibly a ripped meniscus in my knee.  I finally decided to head to A&E when I finished a telephone hearing almost in tears because my leg hurt so much.  Knowing the NHS I went prepared for a long wait - with water, a snack and my kindle but was pleasantly surprised to be invited to hobble into an examination cubicle almost as soon as I had sat down - then I realised the one thing I hadn't prepared for was the fact that I was wearing a dress and I was going to have to have my leg waggled around into fairly compromising positions and I would have been better off packing a pair of shorts -you never know when you are going to grateful that you used those groupon vouchers to have IPL to tidy everything up. 

An injured hamstring was diagnosed and I was given drugs and told to keep it rested and iced.  After 2 days there was no real change so I then booked into MOTI for a physio appointment the next morning.  Having made sure I wore shorts this time I had my leg waggled around again and was told that my sciatic nerve was inflamed and after having bits of my spine crunched I was sent off to do some pilates.

Doldrums

Well after my massive binge I tentatively weighed myself before heading to see the beast master and was very surprised to see I had only put on half a pound (yaaaaay!). That cheered my up somewhat as I dragged my feet down to the gym wondering how on earth I was going to cope with the terrible torture that he could devise.  We started fairly inanely with a warm on the bike but just as I was getting complacent he mouthed the dreaded word "sprint" - I think you may have gathered from past posts that I HATE these with a passion - but I tend to just grit my teeth, close my eyes and pedal as fast as I can until my legs won't work.

 Unfortunately this time I reached that stage just as Mark said - well done that's 30 seconds gone.  "Whaaaaaaaat!" my head flicked up, my mouth started swearing (God knows where I got the breathe from?)  Mark just laughed as a girl walking past started backing away nervously and told me to pace myself because I had started off like a bat out of hell.  I then discovered a very important lesson which I used in the next sets - that actually keeping my eyes open and keeping the pace that I've been set makes life so much easier! (obviously it's all relative as I was still struggling to keep the bile down by the end of the session)

Then we started throwing ViPRs and kettlebells around, some pad work and the dreaded TRX to finish - except not quite - much as I had been ready to finish about 30 minutes into the session, Mark still managed to finish with his suprising horrific, because it is so short, abs torture  which ended with an extra set of medicine ball tummy tennis (my name for it not his!) just to punish me for my naughtiness while he'd been away.  Luckily I didn't have to go to work afterwards so I went for a lie down!

I have to admit I'm having a bit of a wobble at the moment - Mark asked how my tri training was going and I had to admit I haven't really found my groove - it hasn't helped that I haven't been able to run or that I haven't got my bike sorted yet so I'm only doing spin training and haven't managed more than 20 minutes on a pace session yet.  I am starting to be very nervous about July 15th and wondering if I'm going to manage it at all.  I avoided training for 2 days and then forced myself (having downloading a load of inspirational tracks for running on the advice of my buddies) to head to the gym this morning after seeing a video of my friend Charlie Martell (who is rowing the Pacific solo) talking about the fact he was having a bit of a hard time at the moment!   I ran for the first time in about 6 weeks on the treadmill at a pretty slow pace for 10 minutes and then got on the bike to do a 30 minute pace session - oh my Lord I nearly got off that bike so many times.  The little voice in my head told me that I should just give up and that I'd never manage the tri so I might as well not bother - I had a fairly serious argument with myself at the 15 minute point when I realised I had only done half of the session and I felt sick as a dog.  The lady next to me on the sit down bike pedalling fairly sedately started to look a little worried at one point. 

I managed to finish the session and then headed back to the treadmill - I had initially intended to do a 10 minute run in the brick but after 1min 20 seconds the inner voice was back, luckily my sister had recommended a song by the Vines called F*&k the World - which came on at 2 1/2 minutes and got me through to the 5 minutes I had finally negotiated with myself because I was feeling a bit nauseous and slightly wobbly.   I have persuaded myself that I shall not be despondent as at least I have run for the first time without having to hobble out of the gym and I have now managed 3/4 of the bike time/distance and half of the run time even if I looked like I had run across the Sahara when I finished it!  I have a swim tomorrow before I head off for the long long weekend and maybe I shall feel inspired when I get back from my break!