My left wrist is now the governing factor in when the long awaited return to paddling a boat actually occurs. It was supposed to happen at the end of September when the right shoulder had had enough time to heal up from the operation. A gentle rehabilitation without loading it up too much and a return to 'normal' paddling over a few months was the plan. In fact, the shoulder was still sore even at that time, but more importantly my left wrist had started to play up from the influence of the rehab exercises. Everything had been going well and according to plan until the introduction of the 'rubber band'. This is a meter long length of sickly green stretchy rubber which provides resistance to the muscles being used. In my naivety, purely for the sake of 'balance' I was doing the exercises on the left arm/shoulder as well as the right, and it seems the left wrist couldn't take it.
Nevertheless, I had hoped to get going again in a kayak at the beginning of this month and had planned to take a club boat out to get the feel of it again and to see how the various questionable bits respond to a little bit of loading. Only a month late, things had looked favourable for a week or so without any real discomfort in the bits that have been interfered with. It was then something of a disappointment to find the left wrist playing up again the day before the return to action after a fairly ordinary work out. So... postponed for another week.
That rather put a glitch in the continuity of the jogging program which consequently didn't get started this week until midweek again. Even then it was a half hearted attempt at a 'long' run. It actually ended up as a five mile trot through Richmond park but ending up at the ParkRun hills. I was able to keep the pace fairly steady for three miles at around 8:45 miles and still able to give a good account of myself on the uphill stretches and recovered while walking on the downhill. All in all not a bad session. 1). 8:37. 2). 8:49. 3) 8:48. 4) 11:24. 5). 10:09
I followed this up on Friday with another jog around the Bushy ParkRun course. This was much of a repeat of Wednesday's jog with virtually the same pace. Usually I wouldn't run the day before a ParkRun, if nothing else but to give muscles a chance to recoup and to put in a respectable performance, but since the following ParkRun was intended as a training session anyway, it didn't matter too much. I ran with both the Garmin and the Timex in sync, just to compare my times for the mile positions with those of the Garmin and to get half mile splits on the Timex. They proved to be fairly uniform within a couple of seconds. They were:- 1) 8:34. 2) 8:55. 3) 9:10. 4) 0:44
The above recorded nine-minute, third mile pace also incorporates a slight detour made necessary by the unwanted attention of a fully antler-laden stag, which seemed to be objecting to my approach. Normally I give these creatures a very wide berth, but although I'd noticed it, it seemed fairly docile and I began a circuitous route around it with at least fifty meters clearance. It however decided that it didn't like what it saw coming towards it and broke into a trot directly towards me. Luckily the path I was on runs alongside the main road and there were a number of cars passing each way at the time. It seemed prudent to take my chances with the traffic than a large pair of antlers. I veered off sharply towards the road and the bloody thing followed until I made it up an incline and onto the Tarmac, at which point, thankfully, it turned its attention elsewhere.
On Saturday I took Elie to a practice session at the club instead of doing the ParkRun which I had intended. While she did intervals in the kayak I took a jog along the towpath for a couple of miles and back. The towpath is rough in this area with flints and cobbles making the path pretty knobbly and uneven to run on. You can feel every sharp bit through the soles of your trainers so it's not a course to get fast on. But I did feel as if things were coming together a bit and after jogging the first mile I was able to inject a bit of pace for most of the second mile. Walking the last part up to mile two and back again, a second pace run back to the start still gave me a fairly productive session. So good in fact, it almost felt like running. 1) 9:03. 2). 10:37. 3) 10:31. 4) 8:41. (3.99 mls)
No comments:
Post a Comment