Comrades 2019

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  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I too have had some issues in getting out onto the road Max; today I surprised myself after not running for 3 weeks in doing a sub 50min 5 miler, maybe if I rested up all the way until Comrades I might break the course record? Need to start getting some serious miles in! I have @Bike It words ringing in my ears about actually doing some training!
  • Glad to hear people are running well. Alas I'm not: had a bad cough for three weeks now and not run at all for about 10 days, and only two short and slow runs in the two weeks before that. Feeling very fed up. I -think- the cough is improving a bit but I now have either pulled intercostal muscle on one side of my chest or localised pleurisy - not at all sure which, but either way it hurts. Kepp well, everyone!
  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Yikes, get well soon Debra.  That's a nasty cough given it's lasted so long and you've been sensible to lay off the running.  

    My knee laceration only kept me off running for about 10 days so I've been able to run for the last four weeks but slowly and uncomfortably, due to a variety of niggles that have been ongoing since December (calf, glutes, hips, back, quads). I think that all my years of desk working are at the heart of this as I had very tight hip flexors and this was affecting my stride length and landing position as well as hampering the glute function and all the other stuff.  As a result, I've been doing lots of stretches and this seems to be helping.  With Stamford 30k coming up this week I'm hoping to have a week of comfortable running. 
  • Well done on the speedy 5 miler lowrez, sometimes a bit of time off can put a spring in your step! Sorry to hear about the cough Debra, they can be really tough to shift sometimes. Becca you sound just like me! I've got chronic back trouble and more than one physio has told me i've got the tightest hip flexors and weakest glutes they've ever seen :# . I really need to do proper stretches and improve things, but never get round to it and shuffle on regardless.
  • Becca7, I'll watch for you at the Valentines 30k.  I'll be at marshall point #7, 8.6km from the start. Wearing a Comrades cap and, I'll be handing out jelly babies - hope you like them!  Have a good run.

    Debra, I hope you feel better soon, beware that bad chest and take care.
  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Sorry to hear you are a fellow sufferer Max, I hope it doesn't slow you down.

    It will be great to see you Terry.  I fear that the jelly babies will probably have gelatine, so none of those for me thanks.
  • Becca, ah, I forgot. Anything else good for you? Wine gums maybe?
  • Becca, Max, Terry: thanks. The cough is definitely improving now, but the sore chest muscles are going to keep me from running for a bit longer, alas. Have to wait until Friday to decide whether or not I can maanage my planned SVN event on Sunday.

    Good luck at the Valentines 30k, Becca.

  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Thanks Debra.

    Don't go to any trouble Terry.  Finding vegan jelly sweets can be tricky.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    How about vegan Percy Pigs? Did I ever say my middle name is Percy after my grandfather who was born in 1900!

    Sorry you are under the weather Debra.

    Ooo Becca and Max and before you BikeIT, I was here moaning about all that first! Its horrible isn't it, Max I would urge you to address it with some sustained treatment, I have been meaning to do something about mine for months and months and it has never completely gone, mostly because I am so lethargic about being consistent about doing anything about it.

  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    I don’t think vegan Percy Pigs exist yet, only vegetarian ones. This is a minefield!

    Let all of our right hip flexor squad do our couch stretches. I find those hit the spot. 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    I hadn't even heard of a "Couch Stretch" Becca! Wow the execution seems somewhat complicated, especially the risk of projectile vomiting: https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/couch-stretch-small-but-important-ways-youre-doing-it-wrong

    So what other moves can you advise? I know you have done yoga in the past so you are bound to be a better source for proper exercises than my usual method of randomly browsing youtube and becoming distracted by driver cams from Russia

    Hope you enjoy the V30 :)

  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    That couch stretch in the link is the main one that's important for folks with desk jobs.  Something that the link doesn't mention is if you reach up with your arm on the side that is being stretched this will intensify it and if you reach up and over this will get the TFL muscle, which can also be an unhappy camper.  

    90/90 stretch is another good one.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Aha the Transport for London muscle - I know it well from using my Oyster card. This is a great revelation; I have never heard of these stretches or muscles before - I will jump on this avenue with gusto, expect instant results, and then forget to keep doing them. At least that's how it usually goes. I obviously need to address this inconsistency in my approach to resolving this. It did go through my mind the other day that if I signed up for a beginners yoga class or similar it would make me actually turn up somewhere and do these things with some regularity instead of going home and watching more Russian driver cams on youtube.
  • lowrez  :D the number of times I've told myself that I've got to do yoga or pilates and get some degree of movement in my rickety old body! It's so obvious really, I don't know why we don't do it. I shuffle along, train like crazy to get super fit aerobically and shave a couple of seconds a mile off my pace when I know deep down that if I only addressed these issues I'd probably knock 20 seconds or more a mile off if i could actually have anything resembling a full range of motion in my joints. Bonkers!!
  • Debra - sorry you're not feeling too good. Sounds like its all dragged out a bit. Get better soon.

    Unfortunately I think we all have the same niggles and 95%of us are probably very enthusiastic about exercises and things to sort them out. Alas I too, am one that jumps on the remedial exercise band wagon for just a few short days. It's just so boring :# And they're easy to remember whilst you're in pain but the minute you feel slightly better they go out of the window :)

    I actually do yoga once a week. I still have aches and pains and run really slowly :)

  • @lowrez re the London dinner. Not a problem. I have yet to book London accommodation and choosing somewhere nearby is the obvious resolution :)

    Running straight through the finish line and onto a train seems like a suboptimal idea. Straight into the pub I say.

    As regards the injury/niggle/stretching/yoga discussion. I have been having all sorts of right shin issue for coming up on a year now. It phases between OK and annoying. Fortunately for now it is not painful/stopping me running.

    Excessive expenditure on physio (massage), doing hip and glute stretches as close to daily as I can muster and weekly yoga is 100% the only thing keeping me moving. I am not sure which bits are helping so for now I am just doing it all. I'd recommend everyone with similar issues commit to a good self care routine.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Very likely I will drop in at The Euston Tap on the way out Thomas :) Last year we picked a pub sort of near the finish to meet up in but the spread of finish times was so great and the pub was so crammed with people spilling out onto the street that despite several of us putting our noses through the door at various times it was simply impossible to coincide. I'd be up for attempting that again but we'd need a pub remote from the hooha of the day I think to have any chance, possibly The Tap! :)

    I admire your consistency on the maintenance regime!

  • Mac3Mac3 ✭✭✭
    I'm also in the camp with tight hips and glutes.  My recent training has been a focus on speed via intervals/hills but this has resulted in a tweaked left achilles tendon (which will explain my drop off in strava postings!).  I'm doing a weekly Pilates class but I tried a stretch/mobility class at the gym which really showed up my inflexibility and I was cramping up a lot.  I've added in sports massages and hope this will fix things for the key March/April training months.  Hang in there everyone!
  • I feel you can't really win. I do circuits Monday and a weights-to-music class Weds and have decent glutes and abs now but padded with unfeasible quantities of lard now as I run so little! Do what you can and don't fret, you're a long time dead as they say.
  • Terry48Terry48 ✭✭✭
    edited February 2019
    Becca, back to the subject of vegan sweets! I found very few vegan suggestions on 'Dr Google', including 'Love Hearts', some specific Rowntrees pastilles and one or two others. Over the past week I watched for any those at both Morrisons and Tesco (where I do all our supermarket shopping) - without success.

    Then, hey ho, this morning's Rutland Water parkrun was promoted as a Valentines parkrun and volunteers had provided a big swag of Love Hearts <3 in little 'tubes' at the finish.  I bagged a couple of them. (As usual, I finished way near the back and there were still very many left over).

    So, if you would enjoy those I shall have them for you at my 8.6 km marshal point (kept apart from my generally offered jelly babies). If you slow down for just a few seconds for me to dig them out, they are yours!

    Have a really good run tomorrow.  The weather is looking so much kinder than last year!

  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Nice work Terry, above and beyond. I shall look forward to those. Appropriate sweets for a Valentines race too. 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    I'm not affiliated, just on their e-mail list. Don't know if this is of any interest:-

    http://consports.co.za/comrades-2019/

  • I'm devastated. Just been to get out last years Comrades top for tomorrow and can't find it anywhere :'(
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I can't remember what it looks like or where it is either SS - maybe they have all evaporated? I haven't seen it since Mugg&Bean - has anyone got the group photos from that breakfast? I don't think I have those either?
  • It's the blue one. Not nearly as nice as the orange one from 2017 or the fluorescent yellow one from 2016. And I have group photos from Mugg & Bean - will try to post them!
  • I had the purple one. I’ve had it at home and used it. Just can’t find it now. Think I must have mistakenly thrown it out after a rare clear up☹️
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I think I wore a charity shirt to Mugg&Bean I bet there is a Comrades bag kicking around here somewhere with an unworn  purple t-shirt in it I will never wear - it will be a blokes L - would that be any good for you SS?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Hope you can find the piccs Debra :)

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