Carmen's Plodathon by SuperCaz

January started with good intentions, but has gone downhill.  After Stubbington my achiles was quite sore so I took three days off from running, and then life got in the way with me spending most of a week helping with emergency decoration of a friends house.  She was two days from being made homeless when this place came up so she had no choice but to take it, even though squatters had been in there before her.  Even though it had been cleared, it was still filthy and we had a whole army of people working around the clock cleaning, scrubbing and painting to remove all those unmentionable stains.  She now has a beautiful place and you would never know about its history.

We finished last Wednesday and I came home and went straight to bed... and didn't get up until yesterday.  I've been hit by a bad cold mainly consisting of a fever and cough that has prevented me from getting any sleep and leaving me completely wiped out.  Yesterday I had to get out of the house as I was climbing the walls, so I went down the gym and spent an hour sitting in the spa and steam room, but even that exhausted me.

Feeling a lot better today and managed to get a whole 4 hours sleep last night, so I am going to go back down the gym for some more steam treatment.  Hopefully exercise will resume again in a couple of days.

Last week was the first official week of being back into training.  Prior to that I had been doing some exercise to ease me back in, but nothing I would call a proper training session - up to 30 min swims, up to 3 miles runs and a few strength sessions in the gym.

Monday started with a strength session with my PT where we concentrated on legs.  I really noticed the loss in strength over the last few months and it was a bit disheartening to find myself flagging when I used to find some of those exercises quite easy.  I also attempted to get back into the running by running to the sports centre and back - only 3k each way and I had to walk a little on some of the hills that has suddenly appeared on my route.  I'm sure they weren't there last year!

Mondya evening was finished off with a swim in the sea under the full moon.  The moon only broke through the clouds for maybe 30 seconds, but it was a fun swim and I lasted 25 minutes without the wetsuit.  Swimming in the dark is magical and I would recommend that everyone has a go, although be aware of your safety.

Tuesday morning I could hardly walk, so it turned into a rest day and I visited a friend.  We did go for a walk to help me loosen my legs up, but nothing strenuous.

Wednesday I went for a run with a friend.  We did 6 miles in total, but as 1 mile reps with a rest in between.  I wasn't capable of running continuously but I was pleased that I had got out there.

Thursday I went for a Masters swim in the pool, where we did a lot of 100m reps and a total of 2.2k.  This was my first proper swim back after injury so I was a little concerned about it and kept the effort down, but I managed to stay in for the full hour with no discomfort in the shoulder afterwards.

In the evening I did some speed work with a friend.  10 x 400m reps going up a hill with 400m recoveries going back down it.  I've never really got into speed work as it felt too tough but I really enjoyed this and might give it another go.

Friday was an enforced rest day as I visited friends and family across the country.  This over run into Saturday, and I didn't get home until late, so another rest day for me.

Sunday I ran the Stubbington 10k.  I had entered this before I got injured and was very concerned about whether I was going to be able to finish.  I decided to take it slow and just aim to get round.  My time was awful, but I did manage to run the whole distance with only one short break at the water station.  It might have been a rubbish time but I enjoyed it and it has done my confidence the world of good.

So that's week 1.  About 20 miles ran and 2.2k swam towards my yearly targets.

The run up to Christmas was hectic and although I was constantly on the go, I didn't get much exercise in.  Christmas was spent travelling around all of the relatives, but at least I don't have to see any of them again for a few months.  Much as I like to see them, it is always nice to come home.

So today I decided to crack on with the training and I was down the gym reasonably early for an hour of rehab exercises followed by 15 min on the treadmill.  It doesn't sound much compared to the amount of exercise I was doing a few months ago, but it was actually quite challenging.  I've progressed up to 2kg weights for my sholder/arm rehab, but they were still the maximum I could do without putting too much strain on my recovering muscles.

The rest of the day is going to be spent having a Christmas as home.  Hubby likes the roast dinner left overs so we have to cook a turkey whether we have it on Chirstmas day or not.

The one thing that made this Christmas special was the arrival of my sisters second baby, born on 22nd December.  Mother and baby are doing well.

The physio was pleased with the recovery of my bicep yesterday, but I still don't have comfortable full movement of my arm, so she investigated further.  Diagnosis - the start of frozen shoulder.  Oh great.

So now I have even more exercises to do.  I diligently went down the gym this morning and it took me over an hour to run through them all.  That's a whole hour of pathetically easy upper body weights, stretches and exercises while watching others doing proper stuff.  My day was brightened by having a good laugh at a gym bunny who was only using the cardio machines and doing variations on sit ups incorrectly.  She then asked one of the gym staff how to tone her leg muscles but got upset when he tried to take her to the mats to do lunges and squats - oh no, she didn't want to do anything difficult, and what she really meant was which cardio machines were the best for toning her legs.

I spent some of yesterday coming up with a training plan for the next few weeks.  So far I have only set myself types of exercise for each day, such as gym, run or swim.  I'm deliberatly not defining what to do during these sessions as I don't want to set myself something that is unachievable or against the physio's orders.  If I can get in a routine of training with structure then it will be easier for me to get into a proper plan after Christmas, when I need to start thinking about doing the distance sessions.

Right, I really must go and write those Christmas cards and think about getting the tree up.  Not much time left now.