The physio

(First race photos that I've actually considered worth buying) It's hard not to smile when you've just ridden 210km and have realised it's about to be over!

Last time I wrote, I had pronounced myself cured and was feeling goood.. Well right after I wrote that post I went for a run and although it wasn't bad, I could feel some dull pain in my left leg. Went out the next day and it was even worse, so that was the end of that.

The pain in my leg was worse than ever, and after self diagnosing it as a stress fracture, I started a thread on coolrunning.com.au asking whether it was worth seeing a physio (I wanted to just take 4 weeks off and let it fix itself). A post from EasyTiger, whose opinion I trust based on other people's reports, suggested that it might just be an inflamed muscle, so I set behind my reservations and made a booking at the physio.

I told her my story, and right away she dismissed the possibility of a stress fracture and put it down to a bad case of shin splints. While giving me an extremely painful deep tissue massage in my calves, she worked out that I probably have a few underlying biomechanical issues that pre-dispose me to shin splints. Apparently my left leg is 1.5cm shorter than my right, which is something I've always suspected (or maybe that feeling of lopsidedness is just my inherent clumsiness:P) but never done anything about. The solution for now is a heel raise, so we'll see how that works out. In the end I think it was worth paying $65 for that (and I've got another appointment tomorrow:S), because I never would've worked that out on my own and would've just continued in these cycles of getting hurt and taking time off only to get hurt again.

Man that deep tissue massage killed me though! My left leg has been so sore from that treatement that I haven't been able to go for the run she wanted me to do. I have been doing lots of cycling though:) The last week or so, I've averaged 40k per day, mostly from commuting to work. It's been good, I already feel a lot fitter.

And the pushups are going well too. I managed 50 a few days ago, and that was two days after setting a new PB of 39, so I'm improving pretty rapidly!

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I'm really yearning to be able to run right now. I've subscribed to about a million running blogs; downloaded 'Once a Runner' by John Parker to read for the third time; made a training schedule that will take me from 15km per week to 120kpw in about 4 months (so very gradual this time!); and I really just want to be able to get out there and run! Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the fact that I just had my last exam today, but I can't wait til my leg is better!

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The end of the exam period for me means that I can finally start organising my trip to Europe:) Don't think I've said much about it yet, but it's going to become a pretty huge part of the blog from now on. A friend and I are leaving in about a month to cycle around Europe, starting in Spain and ending up in Germany. All up, it'll be about 4000km, through ice, snow, beautiful scenery and scary highways. Can't wait! The big thing at the moment is organising accomodation, because while we are bringing tents, it would be nice to have somewhere dry and warm to sleep every now and then!

More details to come.