Today

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Today was supposed to be the day I went for a 15 minute run to see how things are. I’d decided not to do Parkrun because it’s potentially too far just to check things over, but as it turned out, it was cancelled anyway due to ice. I went for a walk to assess the ice, but it was actually quite slippery so I walked and I walked hoping that it would thaw out some more, and my run never happened.

I didn’t go this afternoon because I went to see the new Star Wars film (no spoilers).

So is it going to happen tomorrow? Possibly not, because it’s a Pokemon Go community day at an awkward time (11AM-2PM), and I think I might be coming down with a cold. Colds wouldn’t usually stop me running but since I’m trying to heal an injury, it hardly makes sense to drag myself out if I’m not feeling well.

What’s the plan now? Do I just wait until next weekend or do I go out one lunch time? I don’t know… It’s been three and a half weeks since I last ran, does another week really matter? Well, it does matter because 1. It makes it more likely that my injury really is healed, but 2. My anxiety has definitely increased over the past few weeks without intense exercise (to such a point I’m starting to question whether the Citalopram is still working).

I don’t know…

Maybe I’ll get a short run in tomorrow after all.

Maybe it’s just me getting older, but these new Star Wars films just aren’t doing anything for me. The very first Star Wars film is very simple and easy to follow and it’s kind of magical. This new trilogy, ehhh. Lots of things happen and I don’t understand why. If I went through in detail I’d have a zillion questions to try to understand the plot, but I think the whole point is that so many things get thrown out to go by so quickly that you don’t think much about them and you feel like the plot is moving forward until the next action scene. When you stop and think about it… well, the plot is moving, but I’m not sure the direction is forward.

Rogue One was good though.

LIFE

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The abs are feeling better. I don’t think I’ve had any discomfort from them since Saturday, so that’s pretty good. I’m going to do a test run at the weekend, and then I’m HOPING within a couple of weeks to be in full swing of half marathon training, but we shall see.

I am still quite interested in swimming. I think it would be a good counter to running and is probably very good for core strength. I have not signed up to the gym yet because I realised I did not have any swimwear, but I ordered some at the weekend and it came today, so now I have no excuse.

The train this evening was dreadful because of a tree on the line, thanks to Storm Brendan. I need to claim my 10p compensation for this but I can’t be bothered tonight. A girl I was at school with was sat next to me but I don’t think she recognised me. I googled her and apparently she’s a solicitor now. She smelled a bit though. I probably can’t claim compensation for that. It’s a bit weird to think she’s a solicitor when the main thing I remember about her is that when we were in infant school she did an Irish Jig in assembly one morning in front of the whole school. We stayed in the same class through infant, junior and secondary school, but that’s what I remember. That was… 26 years ago?

Work: Last week we had some training from the Knowledge Transfer PhD student we have, which consisted of essentially a computer science lecture. It felt like being back at university again, but it was a lot more effective than reading articles online, and as I was sat in the room I couldn’t help but think how amazing it is that I’ve worked here less than two months and they’re giving me training on new technology, whereas not once in the seven years I was at my old place did the company ever arrange for anyone to teach me anything.

Part of her presentation involved examples with data sets, and I was quite surprised when one of her slides used my full name as an example. I’m not quite sure how to take that…

Speaking of other things at work I don’t know how to interpret, as I walked past HR lady’s office today, HR lady and researcher lady were having a conversation and HR lady said “EV is one of those people”. Researcher lady: (mildly surprised) “EV here?” “yes”. What was that about? One of what people?! 🧐

Still sore

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My anxiety has been pretty bad for the past week or so, and I’m not really sure why.

Last weekend I put it down to taking ibuprofen, but then I googled “does ibuprofen cause anxiety” and the answer is not only does it not cause anxiety, it kind of has the opposite effect in a lot of people. And since I’ve stopped taking it, I haven’t noticed an improvement, so… it wasn’t that.

Maybe it’s just that I’m not getting any intense exercise. Maybe I’m just frustrated. I don’t know.

My muscles are feeling… ehh. I don’t know. When I go for a long walk and then sit down for an hour, they feel sore when I get up. But then I stretch a bit and they feel fine. It’s often really hard to know how to deal with injuries like this. This kind of soreness is the kind of thing you don’t think twice about if you’re active, usually. It’s the kind of thing you usually think “if I went for a run, this would feel a lot better”.

It’s just the fact it’s been a lot worse, and it’s been dragging on for so long, that I feel reluctant to run again. But it’s very possible that the missing component in the healing process at this stage is more activity. Muscles like being worked. I won’t know until I try it. I think I’ve pencilled in next weekend as a gentle 10-15 minute run, but we’ll see.

I’ve also been thinking about swimming. My mum and sister are members of the gym right next to the station… I could get off the train and go swimming before I go home. Or go before work.

Ibuprofen day 6

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I had a possible breakthrough yesterday when I found a stretch that relieves the discomfort. Basically, although it’d been improving, I could still feel a patch in my abs that really wasn’t happy when I did a particular pose. The pose is to lie on your back with your arms flat on the ground past your head, raise your legs off the ground to say 45 degrees, and then raise your arms and upper back off the ground. As soon as I raised my arms, I’d feel it in the area that’s been hurting.

Yesterday I discovered that if stand tall and stretch my arms overhead (and really, really stretch, so my back is kind of curving backwards, while sucking my stomach in as much as possible, then this stretch actually makes it possible for me to do the first pose without any discomfort.

I’m pretty excited by this because it means I might be back running soon, but since I’m not running at the moment I’ll err on the side of patience. Another week or so isn’t going to make much difference to my fitness but might make a lot of difference to my muscle recovery.

Ibuprofen day 3

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I’m getting pretty depressed about not being able to run. Or rather, not being willing to run. I was doing OK until this weekend, but then it just kind of hit me. I think that all the free time I have is a bit of a shock and I don’t know what to do with it, so I just mope and feel sorry for myself. That doesn’t help.

It’s been a week and a half since I last ran, which feels like an eternity. All I can really say is things feel better than they did two weeks ago, but not 100%.

I don’t know if it is necessary to wait for 100% before running again, and I don’t know if I will reach 100% without actual treatment. Probably I just need to be patient for a couple more weeks, but since this has been lingering for a few months now, is weeks a realistic timescale? I don’t know. The uncertainty is frustrating.

In an effort to distract myself I started trying to play computer games again, because browsing Reddit doesn’t really seem like a hobby. I find computer games don’t really engage me and I just get bored, except sometimes, one really does engage me and it sucks me in for weeks. I started a new Rimworld colony and it’s going pretty well. I built a few rooms, planted a few crops, built a wall around my crops to stop the elephants eating them, protected my cat from being attacked by a snake, and fended off two raids. My colonists are a bit depressed because their bedroom floors are made of soil, but they’ll be OK. When you crash-land on a new planet you have to lower your expectations a bit.

Stomachs

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I woke up at about 2:00 this morning. It was a confusing experience as I was having a dream about nuclear war. It all seemed to come out of nowhere and happen very quickly. I was dissatisfied that the world had been turned into a nuclear wasteland, but I was quite pleased with myself for doing a good job of still being alive, so far. I was pessimistic about my chances in the future, but I was largely accepting of the situation. I have strange dreams.

I think the reason I woke up was that my stomach was quite unhappy. That’ll be the ibuprofen, presumably. I took it a bit earlier this evening and so far seem to have been spared the same level of gastrointestinal distress (I just have the normal amount) – maybe the first dose was just a shock to the (GI) system. But other than that, so far so good.

Unrelated good deed for the day: I posted some seeds to someone on reddit who was disappointed that some she’d got didn’t grow. Now she can be disappointed twice!

Back to work

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Going back to work has proved OK. I’ve really enjoyed the trains being quiet AND ON TIME this week. I suspect this won’t last, but it was nice while it lasted.

I decided to bite the bullet regarding ibuprofen. I made the mistake of googling my injury and then made the second mistake of reading the massive threads of people complaining about sports hernias and saying that they need surgery. Hmmm. So, mixed with my general impatience and the fact I had a few pains at work today, I decided to do what the doctor advised after all. She recommended a week of ibuprofen and then re-assess, so that’s the plan.

Injuries 🤔

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Sooo, I decided to stop running and doing any kind of strength training for a few weeks, to try to get my tendon strain (?) to heal itself a bit quicker. There is a half-marathon I want to do in April, and it’d be nice to get a few solid months of training in.

A week later…

I used to get some pains in every day life, like when getting out of bed (sit up type movements). I’m not getting those anymore, which suggests it’s improving.

I don’t know when to try running again though. Is this weekend too early? Maybe I will leave it until next weekend.

In the meantime I am trying to open up my hips a bit. I discovered that the left (the painful side) is much tighter than the right, so I have been foam rolling and stretching with some gentle yoga poses. I’m not sure it’s having any effect so far…

When I get back running, I must be more diligent about strength training and stretching. The routine might work pretty well if I can run at lunch times and then have the evenings for rolling/strength/stretching.

Hello, 2020

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2018 was the worst year of my life. Exactly one year ago, I’d just had approximately six weeks off work and was ‘preparing’ to go back to work. My sick note read that I was anaemic, which was true, but I could have handled that without time off. It was my mental health that was actually causing problems.

Mental health is such a strange thing. It can get incredibly bad without you really noticing, and it’s only after you have a breakdown that you think “hmm, something has changed here – I didn’t used to be like this”.

I ended up going back to work on second of January, though, to be honest, I probably shouldn’t have.

I went into 2019 in pretty much the worst state of my life, and I leave 2019 in probably the best state of my life. It’s been a very long recovery. An extremely stressful situation out of my control finally resolved, which was necessary, but apparently not sufficient, for my mental health to recover. I got the anaemia under control, which helped a lot too. I started taking anti-depressants, which have undoubtedly helped me settle down the rampant anxiety I was experiencing. And, finally, I found a better job and got myself out of a toxic environment.

2019 was a pretty bad year in many ways, but it was an upward trend, and I’m starting 2020 in a pretty good place.

Medical updates

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Blood test results: It turns out my iron and haemoglobin levels are pretty good – the highest they’ve ever been on blood tests. Even so, the iron levels are a long way off the maximum healthy level, and, with how quickly they’ve dropped in the past, I am going to self-medicate another course of iron tablets. The last course took my ferritin from 20 to 62, and the healthy range is 20 to 300. It turns out you can buy the tablets I was taking – ferrous sulfate 200mg – over the counter without a prescription (though you need to ask), and it’s actually cheaper than a prescription.

Injury: I mentioned my ongoing running injury woes to the doctor. She had a good feel around and told me that the area of pain is a busy area full of soft tissue, tendons, fascia, etc. She recommended a week’s course of ibuprofen to reduce inflammation, then re-asses. I was completely hyped for this until I read the side effects list of ibuprofen, then got cold feet. I have had problems with stomach bleeding in the past (hence the iron tablets), so I get nervous when I read it on side effects. So I haven’t taken any.

Instead, I’m trying to get some anti-inflammatory effects through my diet and I’m coming around to the idea that I just need to rest it. It is improving, but it’s not there yet.

Interestingly, although she didn’t say it to me, she recorded it on my record as a strain of the tendon of the medial thigh muscle – so not my abs at all. It makes sense – I have found that stretching my inner thigh can give an unpleasant pulling sensation in the area it’s been hurting.