Diary Of A Road Runner

Cross Training - 30 mins stationary excercise bike cycling

On the road back from injury - what has surprised me is the devastating mental effect an injury can have. It is not like I am an elite athlete, and running is basically my life - I have no idea how it must affect top athletes in any sport when they are sidelined. But in my case, I took up running because of very difficult events in my life, as a better way of dealing my stress and depressive states than my usual addictions of the past (drink, drugs, all bad stuff!). So the running has been so good for me - but every time I start to get to new levels, I seem to get an injury. The first time I think was from not using proper shoes - I had some hip pain, but that didn’t come back once I got proper shoes. The next injury was from a gentle swim - groin strain from unaccustomed breast stroke - so I worked my way back and even managed to race. Then, I start flying ready for my next race, have a weekend on the coast, and fall in a boat and smash my ribs up… I tried a jog last week, but it was no go, so decided to rest - the ribs are painful in a morning but seem to get easier, for a time it was hard to take a full deep breath, but that is slowly improving…

Anyway, I did thirty mins on exercise bike today. At first my legs didn’t feel right, but as my ribs weren’t complaining, I made a go of it, and worked up a sweat, going fast when my legs could handle it, slowing when they protested, but kept going. I actually felt my body start to feel happier - sounds strange, but my moods and energy levels have been dropping since the injury, so body must have been happy just to get the blood pumping.

The good news is that the ribs were ok taking deep breaths, so at least I have a form of cross training to keep me going for now - my dilemma is whether to still aim to do the city of Manchester 10k (without much training) or just skip it. But I will monitor the ribs and see how things pan out.