Beyond the Couch

I am pleased to report that my training is still going well and it feels that the countdown to the Yorkshire Marathon is definitely here.

The date –  20th October 2019

The other day I was in our conservatory where Nicky and I have our running medals on a little medal holder on the wall.  It was nice to have a look through at the mixture of 10’s, halves and full marathons. Each of my three full marathons has different memories for different reasons.

London 2012

My first ever Marathon and the subject of the infamous 7 month journey from being able to run for a couple of minutes in September 2011 to the Marathon in April 2012.  Of course the Marathon was in London which is special and I did this in the Olympic year which added a little extra speciality.  My time was irrelevant (although it was 4hrs 55mins) but I ran all the way.

My memories of that day included the route on the south side of the River Thames where everyone appeared to have been partying through the night, the run past the Cutty Sark, the pure loneliness of running round the Financial District and then the joy of seeing Big Ben and knowing that the end is in sight.

My regret? Not being able to convince Nicky and my Dad that I was in good shape so that they didn’t worry. I failed.

Yorkshire 2013

The Yorkshire Marathon

I did bugger-all after London and lost my fitness and did the whole training journey again leading to October 2013 and the first ever Yorkshire Marathon.

My memories of that day were enjoying the run around the centre of York after a gentle down hill descent and running past The Minster. I enjoyed the crown interaction at the U turn at Stamford Bridge but then have the memory of hitting the wall and then having to walk a couple of miles with horrible calf pain.  My best memory, which will live me forever was running through that pain for the last 1/2 mile to get in at 4 hrs 29 mins which was below my 4:30 target.  I recognised that I needed to have targets on which to focus and had already booked my next Marathon

Brighton 2014

My home town, well 7 miles from my home town to be accurate.  I had already run the 1/2 Marathon here and this course just stretched it towards Shoreham and the challenging area around Shoreham Power Station.

My memories of that day was knowing I had what I thought at the time was a slight muscular injury (it wasn’t) and popping a couple of Nurofen and running through it.  Seeing my Mum, Dad and Sister 17 miles in was wonderful and uplifting.  The finish too was great as dipped in at 4 hours and 19 mins with further gains made on the previous year.  At that point I thought I was on a journey to run sub 4 hours in the next couple of years.

You all know the story of what happened next, if not just have a quick scroll through and it is all documented here.  And now, here I am free from pain and training exactly to my coaches plan and looking forward to October 20th.  To be clear though I am completing the course on a run/walk strategy as my reengagement with running was too late to get myself fit enough to run the whole distance; that’s for Spring 2020 and as yet I am unsure where.

So, I am not going to apoligise for uploading my favourite running photo again, but 6 years ago (having hit the wall and getting cramp) I managed to find something to run again  for the last 200 yards to get over the line in the inaugural Yorkshire Marathon sub 4hr 30min, that was 25 mins quicker than my London Marathon the previous year in 2012.  This picture is the moment I realised I was going to get in sub 4:30. I love it as it brings back that snapshot in time.

I always call my marathon training “journeys” as you are never quite sure in which direction they might go.  As anyone who reads this blog will know, this one started six weeks ago  when I quite ludicrously  booked a Yorkshire Marathon place and then asked my coach for his help when contacting him for the first time in 3 years.  I hadn’t run for 3 years.

So reality quickly struck and I refocused on perhaps getting fit for a Marathon in Spring 2020 and I resigned to the thought of having to contact the organisers of October’s Yorkshire Marathon and explain that I had bitten off more than I could chew; I would need to ask if I could drop to the 10m race. Don’t get me wrong, the 10m race is a significant achievement, but I have already done it when I had a personal fixation to  “beat”  the road from Holtby to Murton on which I stopped running and walked in the 2013 Yorkshire Marathon.  I’m odd like that, but I hated that bit of road, or perhaps more accurately I was cross with myself 4 miles from the end when I hit the wall.

I do not even know what time I ran the 10m race in as I did not care; I don’t care now.  It was after my spinal surgery so I remember being pretty much last in and seeing that my bag was pretty much the last on the low-loader.  So I have no target nor focus on the 10m race. I ran 9.5m on Sunday (ran/walk actually) so I should be through that distance next week anyway.  I know that if I got a 10m medal I would be looking enviously at those wearing the 26.2m ones.  I would feel like the FA Cup runners up who have medals placed on them and then quickly take them off; I’m odd like that.

My training has been excellent so far. I do everything on my plan and have continued to work on body balance and stretching in the gym at work. Everything I do is uploaded to Garmin Connect for my coach to see.

My coach called me today to talk through my progress.  Keith is really pleased but also rightly cautious. It is not uncommon to suffer an injury when after a long period of no exercise the workload is stepped up too quickly.  But that said, Keith is very pleased and we talked through my training and how I was feeling and he is making an intervention to step up my training by introducing more threshold sessions and stepping up the run walk times to 15min run and 1 min walk x 6 sessions.  Thank God he has not introduced Kenyan Hills yet (he reads this so they’ll  be in soon).

I asked the big question . . . .

I reminded Keith that I still had a Marathon place and didn’t really want to do the 10m race. It was empty for me.

“Could I possibly do the full 26.2m on a run/walk basis?”  I asked. “Yes” said Keith “If you continue to make the progress you are, if you don’t train on any slight injury and you are 100% honest with me.”

“How’s the weight loss going?” Keith asked.  I was honest.   It’s time to cut the snacking to give me the best chance possible in October.

I am over the bloody moon though with the news today.  To me now, the Marathon is  completing the distance not just running it all the way. I’ve never had that view before though, but this could be the 4th Marathon I’ve “completed” and that would do for me.

Things have been going well so far it has to be said.

As usual I am following my training plan to the letter and my coach, Keith has been mixing up some runs with time in the gym building my core strength. I’m lucky in that where I work a new gym has been installed and it is run by a team from Nuffield.

The classes range from those managed by the trainers i.e. core conditioning or stretch and relax, to those using the “Virtual” world where we body balance or body pump with a group of bronzed good looking boys and girls in a pre recorded class on a large plasma screen.  When these guys tell me at 6:00am that “I’m looking good!” I know they’ll appreciated that they can’t really see me.

The stretching classes are definitely helping and I am concentrating on my hip flexors which should have been sponsored by Superglue!

My time running increases this week with me moving towards 2 hours on my feet (mixture of run and 2 mins recovery walks) this Sunday. I know I am getting fitter as my heart rate continues to drop in these recovery sections.

It’s really surprising that it has been four years since I updated this blog.  The idea behind this one being called “Beyond the Couch” was that I had recognised that I needed goals and targets to keep me focused and on track; its my slightly odd mild addictive personality.

I’m not going over old ground of the prolapsed disc and spinal surgery as that can all be found in the history of this blog.  The only good thing that came out of it was my wife, Nicky took my pre paid Yorkshire Marathon place and has kept running since, working her way through an absence with a horrible gastrocnemius tear.  Nicky has done well to come back from that and I am proud of her determination not to give up.

So what happened that triggered this reappearance in running gear to dust off this blog?  It was simply that I missed that feeling of fitness; I missed that feeling 5 or 6 miles into a easy level run and thinking “Wow, I am breathing more easily now than I used to sitting in a chair!”  I wanted to get that back again if I could.

If I am being honest I had made no real effort to stop the 26lbs creeping back on over the last 3 years, its all too easy for me to combine  a lack of exercise with snacking unfortunately.  Over the last couple of months I had begun to drink more water and to cut down on the snacks and I had lost 8lbs fairly easily.  Then of course it happened –  I’ll just run another Marathon!  The switch flicked!

Nicky already had a place booked in the Yorkshire Marathon and I worked out there were 16 weeks to go, so I logged on and booked my place to support McMillan Cancer Support which, with family and friends’ help,  I have done for 3  previous marathons.

Now to find my coaches again and see if they remember me.

I emailed Keith and Debbie from Full Potential and announced that I had booked a place in the Yorkshire Marathon in October and asked for their support to get me there; they are outstanding coaches.  I announced that I had a new Garmin 735XT (because clearly its about the watch??) and would upload a 20 min run, so they could see the challenge ahead.

“Can we have a chat on Monday” Keith quickly wrote in an email.

Our chat was simple,  I would simply be broken if I tried to get from my current level of fitness to a Marathon in 16 weeks.  I knew I had no fitness, no miles in my legs, but was fuelled by adrenalin and stupidity.  We refocused on a steady plan with the 10m race in the Yorkshire Marathon or perhaps a run/walk strategy for the full marathon if my progress is excellent.

I am about 3 weeks in now, much of my work has been 30 min runs on grass and bike and x-trainer work.  In the last couple of weeks Keith has introduced some interval training and I was really pleased with the 70min session this morning and how my heart rate recovered during the 2min recovery periods

On my first few runs back, there was no real drop in heart-rate to be seen!

So, there we are, “Beyond the Couch” is back up and running as a blog.  Hopefully you might enjoy the journey with me as carefully I try and get back to another Marathon.

I cannot believe it is over 5 months since I updated by blog on here; amazing how time flies.

The MRI scan on 27th January showed that there was a further small piece of disk out in my spine, mixed with scar tissue from the micro-discectomy; something had aggravated the nerve. It was letting me know it was angry.  I went back on full medication: 16 pills a day from Tramadol and Gabapentin.

I saw the consultant, Chandra Bhatia in February for the results and he was still upbeat; he’s a lovely guy.  He helped me understand that the sciatic nerve can just flare up, especially as mine had been angry for six months before the operation back in September.  Chandra wanted me to be careful and slowly come off the medication and allow the nerve to settle, he was confident that the pain would recede. He of course was right.

I’ve also been working with Michelle Roberts at Highthorne Physiotherapy in York, who knows too well my tendency to throw myself straight back in “full on” once I set my mind on things.  Michelle is keen that I make lifestyle changes; at 47 the weight comes back on very quickly with no exercise and I hadn’t made the dietary changes I should have.

The only real problem I have had for the last six weeks is a weak lower back.  If I transition from sitting in one position to another, or from sitting to standing, my back can feel like it is giving way – the muscles spasms and I find it difficyult to hold myself steady.  Both Michelle and Chandra are certain this is just a lack of core strength caused by a year of doing very little strength and conditioning (I’m being generous calling it very little).

So, I’ve made a couple of changes.  I have bought a nutri bullet and I smash up spinach, fruit, nuts and seeds for breakfast. I am snacking less and I have started to lightly exercise.  I did 30 mins on the cross trainer in the gym on Sunday and this morning I was on the treadmill;  3 min runs interspersed withe 1m walks; I did 3 sets.  I try not to think back to the fact that a year ago I could run 26 miles; I try not to stay on a thought that my gym tops feel tight. Instead I try (and it’s hard) to think positively that this might now just be the start of the recovery

Earlier today I had another trip inside the MRI scanner as my consultant ties to find out what has happened in my lower back that is once again causing the nerve pain down the left leg..

The pain has got a little easier over the last week or so and the morning somewhat less stupid as once again I am able to get my socks on without trying to be some type of contortionist.. This might mean that the consultant is correct in that the nerve has just become agitated, but without the original (or another) disk slipping. However, the consultant did say that things should clear up after about 3 weeks and we are just beyond that now.

I’m back on 17 tablets a day: 8 x Tramadol and 9 x Gabapentin,  Gabapentin is an anti-epileptic medication, also called an anticonvulsant. It affects chemicals and nerves in the body that are involved in the cause of seizures and some types of pain. Gabapentin is used in adults to treat nerve pain. Tramadol is an opioid pain medication used to treat moderate to moderately severe pain; I have to sign for Tramadol at the chemists!

So today I was back at the Nuffield and back in the MRI scanner as we try to find out what is going.  It appears as though there are 3 considerations:

1) The original disk or another disk has slipped and is compressing the sciatic nerve

2) The nerve has just “gone into one” and is cocking about – my definition..

3) The scar tissue is forming following the operation and it on the nerve.

For the 1st option a further micro-discectomy might be possible; the 2nd would just be part and parcel of the nerve healing process and sadly little can be done about the 3rd option.

Hopefully I’ll get my results in a few day’s time.

The left glute and left ankle pain continues, but under the suppression of 8 Tramadol and 9 Gabapentin a day, I’m perhaps forgiven for thinking things might be getting a little better; mind you with that medication I have done well to remember what day it it  – Tuesday right?

My consultant thought that the sciatic nerve had become  aggravated (I’m sodding well aggravated!!) which could take two to three weeks to calm down.  Up until now, I thought it was more than that and have been really fearing further disk problems, either from the same disk or one of the others.

Everything had been going well, I had just got back into the gym for very light work and was positive.  It was good!  But then from nowhere  the nerve just decided to remind me that it can be an absolute pain in the arse (every pun intended!).

Today I was due another MRI scan, but the Nuffield phoned this morning to say that the scanner wasn’t working and they were awaiting a technician to arrive.  They never called me back which suggested he only had a 3amp fuse with him.

And so I’m still none the wiser, I still have no idea how serious this problem is . . . more to follow.

Problems again.

Just before Christmas I started to feel a little pain in my left glute; everything had been fine up until then: my physio was happy, my gym work had been light and had been going well. Indeed my when I told my physio of the slight “twinge” she was happy that it was just healing and nothing about which I should be concerned.

On Boxing Day my wife said that she thought I was sitting awkwardly and we went for a walk and together carried some shopping back from Sainsbury’s.  The morning after I awoke with all my original pains back; the excruciating pain in my left glute and the searing pain on the outside of the lower left leg all suggesting that there is a problem with the sciatic nerve again.

Yesterday I managed to get to see the Physio, but the spasms in my back and the immediate pelvic shift (which happens when I hurt my back) limited what she was able to do to help.  Being New Year’s Eve my Consultant up at Teeside wasn’t working and the outpatients department suggested I immediately go to see my GP to get pain relief.  I have an excellent GP who knows everything I am going through and explained the next steps my Consultant might take and gave me prescriptions from Gabupentin and Tramadol which I am hoping will help until we have a better view as to what has happened.

Happy New Year by the way x