Going Nowhere Fast

Thus spake the man who has just been doing intervals running on the spot on the trampette 🙂

For folks of a certain age, the trampette will be remembered as that little bouncy thing you jumped on in PE class before *vaulting elegantly/getting stuck halfway/ landing on your head ( *delete as appropriate) over the big wooden box horse.  As someone whose grace and poise is inversely proportional to his effort and enthusiasm, this usually resulted in me being catapulted violently over the box, occasionally the right way up, before landing with a thump on any part of my body except my feet. Sometimes I even landed on the mat.

My recollection is that the box seemed massive though like many things from your childhood, including Creme Eggs and Yorkie Bars, I suspect they may seem smaller nowadays. I assume the big box horse has disappeared from schools, cursed by health and safety or PE teachers too unfit to demonstrate how to do it. Either that or they will have realised that the kids might have watched a black and white war film and realised that they could use the Box to escape.

My only other recollection of the trampette was that watching the senior girls with their wobbly bits doing gymnastics was a popular and educational activity engaged in by junior school boys and male PE staff alike.

I digress.

My achilles is slowly getting better.

After being told by the physio that my chances of making my first marathon of the autumn were slim and none, this encouraged me to redouble my rehab efforts!

The trampette is a great rehab for the achilles and calves. You get strengthening without the impact. If you have a high boredom threshhold you can even do an extended session on it to get  race fit. I once did a 2 hour run on the trampette in a previous injury.

So far I have done a weeks worth of bouncing building up to 20 minutes.  I have started gently reintroducing running back into my programme.

You can see from the table I have been building up gently. I have been running on short grass and ash path trying to avoid pavement and hills.

06/08/2013 Easy 3.5 mi 32:16 9:12
05/08/2013 Easy 2.8 mi 27:17 9:54
04/08/2013 Easy 1.8 mi 22:11 12:41

Yesterday I had no pain at all when running, but when I woke up this morning I had a bit of stiffness and soreness, so am being sensible and not running tonight.

Hopefully a bit more ice, stretching and ibuprofen will see me able to get out for another run tomorrow.

Recovering from an injury like this is a really good analogy for training generally. It is all about stress and recover. With the acuteness of an injury it accentuates the need to stress just enough to encourage healing without stressing so much that the injury gets worse or the recovery time is too great.

Ever the optimist I have written a program which take me from 1.8 miles  to 26.2 in the space of 3 weeks. Realistically I probably wont be fit for what I am christening the Dean Martin marathon (“that’s-a-Moray” sic.) , but I can at least give it a go.

Having started this post by running fast and going nowhere, I shall close it by sharing that in an effort to kick start my metabolism so that it eats some of the lard round my middle which seems to be going nowhere, I am in the midst of a 24 hour fast.

This water is mighty tasty…

Comments

  1. MtM
    MtM

    Ahhh, the wooden box horse comments brought back vivid memories from *** decades ago. Our one seemed HUGE. I wonder how big it actually was. And I wonder if they have all been scrapped and disposed of. Maybe there’s one in some museum of torture / wartime escape memorabilia. Meanwhile, keep persevering with that A’s rehab comeback. Don’t do anything tooooo stupid! MtM

  2. Sarah
    Sarah

    So if you’re thinking about girls wobbly bits when you’re on the trampette, what are you thinking about when you’re running? – I hate you for sticking that Dean Martin song in my head, by the way. x x

    1. Achilles Niggle Post
      Author
      Achilles Niggle

      My days of thinking about girls wobbly bits are long gone. I t was merely a recollection from long ago when boys used to queue up to peer through the windows while the senior girls were doing gymnastics. You really don’t want to know what I think about when I am running

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