Sharla's Log

[Bomp]

As you knnow, the knee pain could be from anything. Just a suggestion of what it could be from experience, if you run on the same side of the road all the time it's possible that some added strain is imposed on the leg which is higher up on the slope (most roads are sloped outwards for drainage purposes). Even though this slope is tiny it still can have an effect, running on the other side of the road when you start feeling the soreness MIGHT help.

Anyway, have fun swimming in circles with your giant right foot .

[sourpuss]

Sharla, you crack me up.

[Sharla]

As you knnow, the knee pain could be from anything. Just a suggestion of what it could be from experience, if you run on the same side of the road all the time it's possible that some added strain is imposed on the leg which is higher up on the slope (most roads are sloped outwards for drainage purposes). Even though this slope is tiny it still can have an effect, running on the other side of the road when you start feeling the soreness MIGHT help.

Anyway, have fun swimming in circles with your giant right foot .

hi bomp, thanks for your input. I'm actually 99.999999 % sure the knee pain is from my back. It's old and only flares up now when my back is bad - not at any other time.

Plus I do deliberately try to varying my running surfaces so hopefully I don't still subconsciously favour one cambour - fingers crossed anyway!

Sharla, you crack me up.

Thanks - i try


So to update:

Still crap at getting to Judo - had my best friends birthday dinner Wednesday night and while I'd skip most birthday dos for training I wasn't prepared to skip hers and getting there late wouldn't have really worked.

Friday night - disorganized with time again - took too long to finish a job in the afternoon that I couldn't just drop. Really need to get my arse into gear with that.

I actually ended up doing nothing at all on Firday since I left my workouts to the arvo and ran out of time. I had promised to meet my sister to see the new Batman movie later that night so I couldn't even do a late session at the aquatic centre.

Saturday was a similar story - trying to get my cleanining, shopping, washing and cooking done aswell as someone else's (for money of course ) and train on the same day has proven difficult. I'll have to get organized to do more of my stuff during the week again.

Still on the home made cereal but decided to add crushed almonds - I could have save time by buying them already crushed but it was cheaper to buy them whole and i figure the husk is probably what contains most of the good stuff so I chopped them myself. Note to anyone who tries this at thome they will become projectile objects so beware!

Forgot to add a while I ago I'm buying lemons and squeezing one whole into a mug and then filling it half way full with hot water to have with my breakfast every morning. Apparently one lemon supplies 1.5 X of your daily Vitamin C requirements. I'm also finding it's good to ward off cold symptoms and to help clean out the sinuses.

OK so my weeks efforts were so crap I had been feeling guilty which motivated em to make up for it on Sunday. I went to the aquatic centre at 5 pm forgetting they closed the gym area at 5 on Sundays.

Hotty gym instructor/ manager dude expressed his regret and I was tempted to hang around and discuss alternative ways he could make it up to me but I felt too guilty to put off training and returned my bag of gear home again and decided to attempt a long run.

I put my bum bag on with drink bottle, jelly beans (for long run fuel), keys and epipen in it. I always carry a bum bag because I need something that will hold my epipen. I have it in case i get stung by a bee since i'm fatally allergic and have to stab myself in the leg and hot tail it to emergency if I get stung. I like the waterbelts you can get with small bottles spread around the belt but they don't come with pockets big enough for my epipen unfortunately.

So I was doing my walk warm up with my bum bag as standard - over my bum and came up with a new theory. Perhaps all these years of running with a bum bag with weight on my ass was developing muscles which would tip my pelvis forward to counter balance it?!?! Along with some stuff I've discussed via PM with Andre it's my best theory so far.

I moved the bum bag around the front and consciously used my muscles to resist the weight. No significant back pain! I ran intervals of 5 km with a 500 m walk between them plus a walk warm up and coold down. I'm pretty stoaked with how it went - and relieved considering the marathon isn't far away. I got through 30 km of running and 35 km on my feet.

Then i went home, tried at very wossy attempt at stretching, drank some water, a protein shake with L-carnitine in it and another sports drink for electrolyte replacement and went to bed.

This morning my legs hate me but not as much as I expected them too and I have no knee pain so I'm really really happy!

I also have a little soreness in my lower stomach muscles which I had to tense to hold my pelvis back against the weight of the bum bag which I'm taking as a good sign.

[Sharla]

Well I was very, very sore for the next couple of days after my 30 km run on Sunday. Didn't recover as quickly as I would have liked.

I think when I had a more regular long run it never took more than one day to recover from it but this week my legs have utterly HATED me!

Unfortunately I had a heap of uni work to do which i could not put off because I made last minute plans to visit my bro interstate for the next week.

He's under the weather since he's just had an operation but he refuses to take time off and he's short of workers so i'll be working out bush with him. He's a shearing contractor and I'm going to be a rousabout on the crutching trailer for a week.

Had so much uni work this week i didn't get to train at all Monday through Friday and stayed overnight at uni Monday and Wednesday night. I may not have recovered as well as normal partially through lack of sleep i guess.

Took overnight bus from Adelaide to Melbourne last night (Friday night) and am taking another bus out to a place called Deniliquin and getting a ride from there out to a small riverside town that will be our base for the next week.

Luckily Melbourne bus / train station has decent facilities. I was able to leave all my stuff in a locker and go for a long run and then come back and pay for a shower.

At least I have tomorrow to get over my long run before I start rousabout work which I'm expecting to be really tiring. Did walk warm up then the following intervals running with 500 m walk between: 5 km, 7 km, 7 km, 4 km, 7 km and then a walk warm down. So as last Sunday I did 30 km running and something like 36 km on my feet including the walking.

I was considering uping the distance to 35 or 40 km this week but considering how long it took to recover from last weeks long run and how much pain I was in as it was i decided that was suicidal!

Was able to make the running intervals an okish pace but I'm still a little worried about how much it hurts. Ideally I'd like to be able to run 30 km relatively pain free before attempting the 42 km marathon.

[wesrman]

Im curious what your diet is like Sharla. What you eat, especially pre and post workout can have a big effect on your bodies ability to recover.

[Sharla]

Im curious what your diet is like Sharla. What you eat, especially pre and post workout can have a big effect on your bodies ability to recover.

Ouch busted! I plann cook ups etc and healthy main meals but I really don't plan enough for the times I'm stuck late at uni or travelling. I was reading a bit about amounts of recommended protein and calcium for women. I probably need a little more protein than I get and DEFINATELY need more calcium!

The last week has been good!

I have a whole week to think about here so I'll try to break it down into doc points:

• Recovered from long run within 2 days which was good. - took Sunday and Monday off exercise and since it was raining and wet sheep are not shorn there was no work then either. Complete recovery - did me good I think.
• Tuesday I worked as a rousabout. We were a little understaffed so it was a long day. Stayed out in a little town called Moulamein and had to travel about 60 km out to work each day.

This country has big properties and the guy were working for has no less than 120,000 ha! he's a private land owner too - it's completely a family business no big investors so obviously i don't want to embarass my bro by being incompetant working there!

Let's just say it's been a while since i did this kinda work and my intial reaction was to want to dry reach when i was faced with a particularly festy bit of wool i had to sort on that first day. Soooooo glad i took work gloves! Anyway my point it I didn't want to embarass my bro so i dealt with it and it gradually got easier. it was much easier with the radio on to dissociate, wearing gloves and thinking about how good it must be for the sheep to have that wool off. it also became easier as I learnt to work faster and feel like i knew what i was doing.

It made me think of the sports psychology equivalent - if i feel like I'm progressing and improving and getting somewhere i'll be able to put myself through so much more. Perhaps also explains how you can fall into the trap of taking a hard punch to land one sometimes - a little success is a huge pain killer!

The equivalent of the work gloves would be my mouthguard - something familiar that subconsciously tells you you're ready. Music - well i think i underestimate it's effect for training - don't usually care much what's on the radio in the gym but now i'm sure it has a big effect!

Anyway left at 6:15 am and didn't get back until after dark that day so no run but lots of physical work - i never stand still for moer than 15 seconds doing this work!

Wednesday - a full day again but not quite so long - my bro is shearing to make up numbers though and he's fast so i'm flat out trying to keep up with my work. At the end of the day I'm stuffed but they have to pack up the trailer (portable shearing set up) so my bro lets me set off running while they do that and they picked me up on the way back. I get in a 30 min tempo run.

Thursday - it rained - oh no - that means a day off and I'm sooooo dissappointed ! I got in a monaghetti fartleck that day when it eased off a bit and it felt good - really felt like i was blowing off the cob webs!

Friday - another really long day since we have to shear at 2 different locations and help round up sheep in between. only running is after sheep and it's pretty dark by the time we get back. Not to mention i'm stuffed!

Saturday - no work - got in my long run. 31.9 km in the following intervals:

10.5 km, 13 km, 5 km, 1.5 km, 500m, 500m, 400 m, 500m.

I did the 500 and 400 m intervals as fast as i could pump out since i read in a womans health magazine (great rainy day amusement ) that burst of intense cardio in between weights sets can reduce muscle soreness by boosting circulation etc.

I was really hurting by the end of the run but was really suprised to wake up Sunday with no soreness! Had Sunday off anyway since it's about 4 hours to get back to Melbourne and then an overnight bus trip back to Adelaide so spent all day travelling.

I'm very pleased with how much my rate of recovery has imporved though! Next weekend's long run with decide whether or not I register for the full or half marathon in September now - fingers crossed!

[Sharla]

Ok so I haven't posted here for a while and I'm about to get back into it since I should have the internet connected at home! Yes that''s pretty monumental for me since it actually meant getting a home phone aswell!

One day I might even have to get a TV that I can hook up to a VCR or one of those modern DVD player thingies!

So to update - i didn't do the marathon - I became stupidly busy the final couple of weeks before i had to leave for my trip to the UK since uni did pay for it and I had to prepare a lot plus finish off a heap of experiments i had growing - which unfortunately you really can't pause with plants growing!

I ran a 20 km training run earlier in the week of the marathon and it just didn't feel right so i decided I had lost some condition in those insane 2 weeks and wasn't quite fit enough. I could have finished but I would have been so sore the run would have put me back in conditioning and probably reaggrivated old knee and back issues wheras when fitter and well prepared I still like to think I can do it.

Instead of running the marathon I spent the weekend learning a few things from Scrap and got to see Donny in action training plus met Mrs Scrap and Adam GB and saw the Plonks fight his pro debut. One day everyone will be talking about him and I'll be able to say I saw his debut bout and I trained with Donny (also bound to be a big thing) and Scrap for a weekend!

It was a really worthwhile weekend and I learnt a lot. I then enjoyed the rest of my trip visiting labs etc and learnt the true meaning of relaxing whilst seeing Scotland with Bilbo (evolution is a banned conversation ).

Now I'm back and have just recovered from a cold I caught on the plane back I am getting organized to have a structured training program again. Fingers crossed I might be starting a new job soon and I have my PhD to finish over the next few months too so I'm budgeting 2 hrs of exercise a day plus transport cycling since we're coming into summer and the days are brighter for longer and the weather good for it.

So basically that's 2 hrs exercise plus 1 hr 40 mins cycling a day except on weekends which will have Saturdays off and not much cycling.

I've decided this is a good time to have a kind of reset which I think I'll do every year for about 1 or 2 months. I'm planning one hour of stretching first thing every morning with wobble board work throw in. I'll do 5 mins of wobble board balancing blindfolded, 15 mins of stretching X 3.

I am going wobble board nuts. The reason being I don't believe my hips stabilize me very well and I think that's the main source of any aches and pains I tend to get. I'm doing it blindfolded because I find that pracitcally impossible right now so need to develop it and i can understand that I am too right eye dominant.

In the evenings I am doing three nights a week cardio (half running including intervals - speed work, half swimming - mixed intensity) and three nights a week resistance work. Again with the resistance work I'm going wobble board nuts incorporating it wherever possible eg ander my toes while doing pushups with push up bars, under my feet for dumbbell squats etc.

I'm throwing in some ideas I got from Scrap provided I get organized with equipment which I won't describe. He can put those up when he's ready. I'll also be doing some shadow work and perhaps simple judo moves these nights at home. The things i'm relatively confident I can practice unsupervised although I will get my bro to spot me sometimes when possible.

I seem to have had great luck with people lately and it turns out that my flatmate used to be an elite swimmer. While i've known this for a while I've always had my own trainings at nights and never been to the pool with her until recently.

Damn it she KILLED me! But in a good way - stretched everything out and worked muscles I didn't know how to use without someone elite like her to make me do it correctly.I didn't even realise how tired she was making me until afterwards. It was such different exercise it really crept up on me!

I'll be using what she taught me and trying to get her to check my form every few weeks since she found things which I think also combat key weaknesses I have holding me back from enjoying other more high impact things as much as I'd like - such as running, judo and boxing etc.

I'll describe the sessions a little more as I do them.

I haven't worked out if and when I'll be getting back into the clubs yet. I suspect I'm better off leaving it until i have my PhD mostly wrapped up since juggling everything has been a bit too challenging for me at times.

Organization has never been my strong suit so to deal with this I've had my flatmate's help reorganizing my room. I mean a COMPLETE do over! So far it's working well - things are easier to find, get out and put away and trip me over less. Howwever, managing my time is the real challene as always.

I've bought an A3 size whiteboard which is my version of a poor man's personal organizer except I've decided it's better because I can layout everything on it ans see it all at once rather than just looking at one part of my life at once. I'm hoping that i'll be less likely to forget things in areas of my life I'm not thinking of in the moment. I've split the board up into parts - career/uni, Sport & Health, Domestic Chores and Finances.

I kinda wish I'd bought a bigger board but perhaps the limited space makes me keep things simple and I have managed to fit everything on there. It's magnetic so I can use fridge magnets to pin up specific stretching routines on a slip of paper too. I have 4 different coloured pens I use for heading like goals, To Do lists, Rosters etc for each section which make it clearer to read and less likely to just be a mass of black and white scribbles when I look at it. Fingers Crossed it works!!!

So I start my program officially tomorrow - just going to the pool tonight for a half social swim with my little sis and have done a bit of stretching today. I've been doing some cardio, resistance work and stretching over the past couple of weeks but not really had a structure to keep track of so now I'm organized hopefully I can make more use of my annual 1 or 2 month "reset" phase!