Tag: running

Happenings

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I’m not at all happy with the weather the past few days. I tried running this morning and it was absolutely horrible.

Parkrun is back at the weekend but I don’t think I’ll be doing it. The COVID case numbers are shooting up very quickly, which puts me off. It seems like Parkrun has promised to return a number of times and then didn’t, but ironically now it looks like they’re actually going to do it, it’s happening at a time when there’s a higher chance of contracting COVID than any time previously.

I phoned the recruiter and said I was happy to progress. The next stage is to wait for the employer to send everything through. I’m not used to such a slow process! And it’s playing on my anxiety. Apparently they do some kind of background checking. The recruiter told me there would be a credit check (why?!) and a criminal record check. I’ve never had to deal with this for a job before so I don’t know what to expect. From my research it appears it will be the basic DBS check, because my role is not eligible for the standard or enhanced checks.

But since I’ve never done this and don’t know what to expect then I guess I should wait until this clears before actually handing in my notice? Obviously, I’m worrying I’ll fail the background check despite there being no reason I should. I’m worrying about references too. I’m sure my current employer will be fine, but the previous one… I have low expectations of them. I keep telling myself that they would gain nothing by starting a fight with me and potentially exposing themselves to a hefty lost earnings lawsuit, but eh. What if they just refused to give a reference? Thanks, anxiety.

Changing plans

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I ended up cancelling the gambling company interview. I wasn’t that struck on them to start with, but I went through the Glassdoor interview reviews and that put me off more. There were a couple of reviews for the same level of position saying they’d been asked to do a week long task for free and then been rejected after doing it. Yeah, no.

So anyway….

I tried running in my new insoles yesterday and it was not a great experience. I am still getting slight numbness, even after barely running for the past few weeks, which is much worse than this has been in the past. Even with the insoles. I’m not sure if they’re helping at all, because the support is towards the back of the shoe, but if I’m pronating at the very last stage then my heel is already off the ground at that point. The other thing is that even after a fairly short run, the skin on my big toe was really sore. I have a callous down the side of it (probably from pronating), but this felt like a blister was forming underneath it. I’m not sure what that means…

Phsyio

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The physio trip was interesting. He spent a lot of time poking my ankles and said he was confused. Apparently, when I’m standing up normally, I tend quite strongly towards supination (underpronation). He said that usually when people are like this, their ankles lack the mobility to overpronate so that’s not their issue. But with me, the movement is there, and I have a strong callous on the inside of my big toe which suggests I am overpronating. He seemed to think it was a bit unusual.

He did all the poking and pressing based diagnostic tests for a neuroma, but couldn’t get any of them to be positive. This matches my experience with the podiatrist years ago – he did all the tests, they were negative, and then goes “well, I still think you have a neuroma”. The physio was less sure. It’s not really that important unless someone is proposing cutting into me, though maybe at some point I should go to the GP and see if I can get some imaging done on it.

Anyway, the outcome is that he wants me to 1) Stretch my calves a lot, because he thought they were resisting even at a neutral foot angle. He said the lack of movement in the calf could be compensated for by my metatarsals and my ankle (i.e. pronation). And 2) get some insoles to support my foot more. He put me on a pair of insoles and seemed to think that everything aligned better when I was stood. I was a bit worried he was going to try to sell me some ridiculously expensive insoles, but he actually just gave me the name of some and said “you can buy these online for about £10”. So I have.

I’m still getting numbness though. Even after having a few very easy weeks, which in previous flareups was always enough to settle it down.

Breathe again…

~ e.v. ~ 3 Comments

So I got a reply to my email and the end result is I’m getting a 5% pay rise from July, which is my 2020 pay rise, and there’s a 2021 pay rise to come. So it’s a good outcome, but I am still somewhat underwhelmed because the 2020 pay rise should be backdated to, well, 2020.

Anyway, it puts me in a better position to start interviewing again now. I read today that the number of vacancies is currently at the highest point since the pandemic hit, so it’s as good a time as any.

I found this highly stressful and I’m glad it’s over now 🙄

I booked an appointment with a running clinic nearby for next week. Unfortunately I had the dreaded numbness in my toes this morning when running so I just decided to get on with it, like I was considering doing the last time around. Apparently they do proper gait analysis, and the practitioner is a runner with a (super fast) 1:10 half marathon time, so I think it’ll be an interesting experience even if they don’t actually fix the problem. I don’t know if there really is a fix for the problem other than a neurectomy (where they surgically remove the end of the nerve), but that doesn’t make sense at the moment since all I’m getting is a phase of numbness every few months, which is obviously better than the permanent numbness that the surgery would leave me with.

I’ve been feeling it slightly for the past few days, but it’s been very minor. A slight loss in sensation is just an odd vague feeling that you wonder if you’re imagining, but today it was getting towards proper numbness. The weird thing is though that it seems to come on after about ten minutes of running, but then a little while later it improves. That seems a bit strange if it’s purely a nerve compression issue. That sounds more like a muscle warming up.

Anyway, my left leg feels like it doesn’t work quite as well as my right. At this very moment the left side of my bottom is aching, and the left ankle always seems a bit stiffer than the right. And I get a few twinges of plantar fasciitis in my left heel every so often at the moment. So hopefully he will say “at yes, you’re a bit unbalanced” and figure out how to rectify it.

Vaccinated

~ e.v. ~ 6 Comments

I had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday morning. I didn’t really know what to expect from it, because my mum (who had AstraZenica) spent about 3-4 days feeling like she had flu, whereas my dad had absolutely no reaction whatsoever. I had a bit of a headache and an achy arm in the afternoon but nothing much. I went for a run on Thursday morning and found I didn’t have any energy and ended up cutting it short, then Thursday afternoon and evening my left leg was aching a lot all over, like I’d really overdone the running (I hadn’t). I ran again this morning and it was much better. And my leg doesn’t ache.

I was worried a bit that I’d react to it like my mum did. I had an upset stomach last week and I really wasn’t looking forward to another few days of feeling horrible.

Also, on the medical theme, the NHS is going to start sharing medical records with commercial third parties starting in July. If you haven’t heard anything about this, it’s probably because they’ve kept it very quiet. The data is ‘pseudonymous’ rather than anonymous, meaning that while it won’t have your name in it, it certainly can be used to identify people. Personally I think as a whole, this is appalling. This is an NHS Digital initiative, but hasn’t been adequately publicised by NHS Digital, who are acting as if it’s the individual GPs responsibility to inform patients even though it’s a national issue. The fact it’s happening as an opt-out system under a short timescale without any effort to inform patients is bad, and the opt-out is complicated and confusing (as there are two different opt-outs) and inconvenient as you need to locate, print, and submit a paper form to your GP specifying your preference. Making the opt-out paper based is a little ironic given that we’re talking about massive digital data collection.

It’s hard to look at this and assume good faith.

There are some details on how to opt-out here. The overall story is covered by the Financial Times.

Halves

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I have signed up to a half marathon in August. There is one in my town (!) for the first time ever, so how could I not? I hope it goes ahead. The last half I signed up for was just as COVID was breaking out, and it got cancelled. In some ways I’m in better running shape than ever, because I’ve been running half marathon distances every Sunday for the past couple of months. In other ways, with the lack of Parkrun and any other timed events, I haven’t run fast for a long time. With Parkrun it used to be that every Saturday morning was a 5k tempo run.

So…. I did some intervals this morning. 6x500m with 60s rest in between. The first interval was about a 4:20/km pace, which considering I used to do an entire 5k at a 4:00/km pace seemed a bit underwhelming, but the others hovered around 4:00/km so it’s not too bad. Though I do vaguely remember somewhere around the 4th or 5th recovery period feeling like I was going to cry and/or throw up (I didn’t do either).

Since I was worrying about on Monday about the fact my manager had casually mentioned about returning to the office in June, there has been a timely discussion thread on Hacker News about “how to negotiate continuing to work remotely”.

There’s a remarkably insightful quote towards the top of the page, which says “The act of trying to force someone to do something, whether by (implied) threat, logic, emotional manipulation, or whatever, can mortally wound a relationship making getting a concession you want moot.“. I realised that it’s up to them at this stage. They’re looking to change the terms of our relationship at my expense, so they need to figure out how to approach it and open the discussion without damaging the relationship.

Lejog

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Since last year I’ve been doing a running challenge called Lands end to John o groats, i.e the full length of the UK. Aptly abbreviated to lejog. Or at least it would be apt if it was French.

It’s about 874 miles in total. Every time I run I put it on the website and see my little map marker move further along.

It’s taken me a lot longer to finish than I envisaged as I spent the first few months battling my hip, then I lost another few weeks when the neuroma in my foot started complaining. But I’m really close to finishing now. I’m about 37km away. I’m hoping to finish it on Sunday. This means I need to run about 16km tomorrow and then a half marathon on Sunday.

Can I do it? We’ll see…

It might slip to Monday.

Weekends

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The weekend was pretty good. I am definitely feeling better than I was last week. On Sunday I woke up at 7:45, which is unusual for me recently – usually I’m awake at more like 6:00.

Sunday was mother’s day (in the UK, don’t worry, Americans) and I bought her a little ‘bee hotel’ which is a little wooden thing filled with little wooden tubes where supposedly bees and insects go and live. She has to work out what to do with it now. It has a string on the top to let you hang it from something but we think it would be better on the ground. It needs anchoring so it won’t get blown around. She has some ideas about trying to build something around it to accommodate wildlife too, but I’m not sure what that will look like at the moment.

Sunday was also half marathon day, just because I felt like it. I hadn’t planned it. I got to 14km and thought “why not?”. I haven’t run that far since the last half I did in September (which was disastrous). My left leg has felt heavy today but nothing too bad.

I think I might have a break from job seeking for a bit. The recruitment sector as a whole is icky. I had a recruiter email today with the message “Thanks for the application you’ve made to the role I have online. Could you let me know when you’re free to speak, and what number to call please?”. 🙄

I’ve had two more email me with roles that are supposedly working from home 3 or 4 days a week, but they haven’t even bothered to tell me where they are based! As if that’s some minor detail. Well it’s in Penzance but you only need to go there twice a week, which is pretty much never, so it’s not important really. And don’t get me started on LinkedIn. It’s 50% a recruitment site and 50% Facebook for awful people. Every time I log in and see the main page I feel like I need to go and have a shower.

Dream stress

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Do I have stressful dreams because I am stressed, or the opposite?

Last night I dreamt that I was at school or university or something and had to pair up with someone to do a presentation of some form. The person I was paired with was the person I used to sit next to in GCSE English, which was, errr, 17 years ago? I think the teacher may have been my geography teacher. Anyway, it wasn’t going very well. Neither of us had any ideas. So we just kind of sat there and waited for it to be our turn to present our non-existent presentation.

According to my watch my stress levels were high overnight and my resting heart rate is up. Which way around is the cause and effect?

I felt really depressed yesterday. This is actually a good thing, because at one time “I feel really depressed today” was something that happened multiple times a week, whereas this is the first time it’s happened for a while. I think what set it off was that I was running yesterday and my toes started to go numb. The neuroma is upset again. That is depressing. This happened over the summer too but I’ve caught it much earlier this time so hopefully a few days off will be enough.

The neuroma is difficult because it’s not really that bad. My toes going numb sometimes is not really a big deal. It’s just that if I keep damaging the nerve it could get really painful, and then it will need surgery. I would like to avoid that. But the first step will be to go to a specialist running physio first to see if they can see any issues with my form. There is a specialist running clinic a few miles away which looks pretty good. The physio I saw for my hip was helpful but they didn’t have the facility to actually watch me run.

But hopefully in a few days it will feel OK again and I won’t need to. I think I probably irritated it by doing a bit too much speed work recently, after having done pretty much none for the last few months. I think my left ankle needs a bit more strength and stability to handle speed.

~ e.v. ~ 1 Comment

I have now finished work for Christmas, which is nice. This year, because of the timings, the company has decided to just close entirely for two full weeks. This company always closes between Christmas and new year. Obviously that comes out of my holiday allowance, but my holiday allowance is higher than it was at my previous company, so it feels like a pretty good deal to me.

I finished the first release of my exciting new wellbeing app. Unfortunately I hadn’t realised that Google’s app review process has slowed down and so far it’s sitting in a review state, so I can’t actually launch it properly yet. I pushed back some ideas for version 2 just to get it out there, but it looks like I might have v2 ready before v1 goes live. We’ll see. I had an idea that it’d be interesting to add custom metrics to mood logging. So instead of just saying “I feel happy/sad/somewhere in between”, you would say “I’m interested in emotions X, Y and Z (e.g. anxiety, frustration, depression, excitement, happiness, optimism, etc) and when logging how you feel you’d rate those emotions. Then you can see how those particular emotions trend over time.

In other news my hip seems to have improved a lot just recently. I’ve found squats really help it. When it starts to feel tight, a deep squat loosens it up, and now I’m running longer distances again without it really bothering me. Today I ran 16km (10 miles) for the first time in months and only needed a 30 second squat break somewhere around 12km. I’m pleased about that. I’m currently on about 2440km for the year. Last year my total was 2492! Can I break 2500 this year? I think so…