Weeks 4 and 5 – pain

This week:

Weight: 80kg (target: 73kg) down by 3kg in three weeks; Miles run so far this week: 11.02

Total funds raised: £64.10 (including Gift Aid!) Hurrah! Only £934.90 to go.

Sponsor me at my Justgiving page by clicking here.

Technology update: the good news is my GPS unit and my computer are talking to each other and i have some very exciting maps, graphs, statistics and so on to look at and enjoy. Bad news is that I have not yet found a way to copy it into this blog to share with you all – this is probably a good thing. And for both of you that like my haikus, it means you do get another one this week – see below. Also, I have got a picture of me running…

However, I am in pain. All this new exertion has left me with a very painful inner thigh. It could almost be called a “groin strain”, the footballer’s injury of choice in the 1970s and 1980s before the fractured metatarsal (I’ve had one of those too) became de rigeur thanks to David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.

So I went to visit the very excellent Chris at Bodylab who is a sports therapist and finds the problem by massaging the affected area until my pain becomes very very intense. Not since having a kidney stone have I experienced such intense pain. Kidney stone pain is, I am told, the closest a gentleman can get to experiencing the pain of childbirth. And before I get letters, as this is the NCT, I realise that, in this instance, “closest” means “absolutely nowhere near as painful”. Indeed if pain were like music for example, my kidney stone pain would be like “Ne Me Quitte Pas” by Jacques Brel – intense, meaningful, but small scale – whereas childbirth would be like a full Mozart Requiem of pain – pretty full on.

Chris then massages the pain away and gives me exercises and stretches to help recovery/avoid injury. Suffice to say that in the short term the cure was more painful than the original injury.

But I am now feeling like I am getting better and had a run (of 4.94 miles) this morning which was really enjoyable in parts. I thought briefly that this marathon lark will be easy as I got into a fairly nice running rhythm. Onward and upward, through pain to glory etc…

While running can be
painful it can also bring
one joy – like childbirth.