I can sit!

Have been doing this since i was a baby.
But for the last 18 months sitting has been painful getting to the point of being unable to sit without a cushion for over 12 months.
It hurts. It worsens the tendinopathy. It's inconvenient. And it's down right embarrassing.
Able to spend my first few days at work sitting without the 'cush' recently.
Finally making some good progress.
Still feels 'lumpy' but no pain.
Gee it's nice to not have pain every day.
Exercises going well.
No plans for more PRP injections thank god!
Loose plan (all going well) is to start running again mid-late Jan.
Sounds like a plan.

HHT

new MRI and new ('hip guru') physio both agree i have high hamstring tendinopathy.
haven't run a step for 3 months.
funny how i managed to run 9 ultras with the pain.
though at times i could do 100km without much pain until after the finishline.
sitting here on my cushion after having 2nd PRP injection over the last 7 weeks.
showing some signs of improvement but won't be back to running anytime soon.
as always when injured have thoughts of not returning: this time the feelings even stronger than previous.
started planning a canadian holiday for next year and within an hour of picking the towns to visit had downloaded (free!) topos of the area and was figuring out the route to get up/down the mountains.
i still have the fire.
baby steps.

Toast

not the vegemite kind
knee has settled down but not enough to start running again for 4 weeks; run 100km then stop again.
so have stopped now.
i am toast.
will see the hip dude again and see if he thinks more hammy prp injections will help or just no running and see what happens.
probably will be out for 3-6 months.
will stop the blog until then.

the 1-legged hobble

glasshouse 50km 24.7.11 6.12.08 29th/49

basic summary is my easy training run last year in 5.50 seemed much cruisier than my 6.12 this year.
this years course was a km or 2 longer but basically i struggled with knee pain.
had some 'knee tightness' this last week, enough to wake with an ache 1.30am race morning which was somewhat disruptive!
ached the whole way but didn't get too problematic until 30km when it was painful to extend my knee which meant i was trying to lift my upper leg higher to compensate then my buggered hammy was complaining! :(

anyhoo...saw the physio today and agrees the itb is a bit inflammed which is usually terrible news but i am almost painfree today (usually bad itbfs would have me hobbling/much worse the day after) and thinks its all superficial.
still should have some extra room in the deep part from the op in 2008.
he loosened the knee/popliteus up and hopefully things will settle.
happy to run with 1 bad injury just not 2!
aim is still to do gh 100km in september but will have to back off for a week or 2.
if things don't settle quickly i will do an early shut-down.

MGTT

have run 5 out of the last 6 days.
sunday - MGTT 2.03.25
monday - 14km flat
tuesday - massage
wednesday - 14km flat
thursday - 10km flat
friday - JRR 1.39

the mr g's torture test time is my 2nd quickest.
fastest was may 2010 in a 1.58.55 where i pushed hard from the word go.
this time i was simply aiming for a 2.15 or so and felt comfy all the way.
could've definitely got under 2hrs again had i wanted.
a strange combination of running well but chronically injured.
helped being a sunday lots of people around - if people are watching you're much more likely to run bits of kokoda (which i did) than slack off.

splits: (pb from may)
top hill 24.5 (22)
gate top highview 44 (41)
gap ck res 1.20 (1.16)
top kokoda 1.38 (1.36)

Plan

it's sad that i checked a few days ago if it was the 3 months i had promised since last talking about my butt pain.
it's 3 months today.
and it's the same.

so 50km GH in july.
maybe MCAT in august.
then GH100km in september.
then i'm shutting down until it gets better.
yep stopping running probably 3-6 months.
nothing.
in the meantime holding faint hope the hammy loading exercises will help.
pretty convinced it's tendinopathy now.

Track?

sri chinmoy 6 hour track 18.6.11 56.6km

long story short is this wasn't my best ultra.
far from it.
badly paced and the hard surface just played havoc with me in the second half.
managed 32km+ for the first 3 hrs and just basically fell apart.
got a really bad case of the walksies at 3.5hrs and went thru the mara in 4.06 (was hoping close to 3.50-55 which i did as a trot at GC last year) and felt terrible.
sore legs and nauseus.
not easy knowing kerrie and greg had just zoomed past looking fresh and 3rd was out of reach unless MUN really hit the crapper.
at one stage just felt like pulling over and stopping and having a cry.
thats what track does to me.
at least on the trail you have something to look forward to.
on the track theres nothing except another lap.

did a lot of walking in the 5th hour.
knew i wouldn't make 60km and was even looking at <55km at one stage!
i run further on hilly trail!!
just managed to keep 4th by running a bit more in the last hour.
laps: 27/28/25/24/15/21 divide those by 2.5 for km per hour.
crap!

funniest part of the day was when grant saw me there: did you bring your ipod?? he asked :)
and i did!
track sucks.

popped into TW after the race.
very very impressed with the organisation.
>100 cars at the finish at 8pm day 2.
heaps of volies around guiding walkers and crews and cars.
massage and podiatry still on hand...very impressed.
so i guess as per my comment in the previous post: with 700+ volies and >1100 runners it is kind of like organising a shuttle launch.