May 20, 2008 at 11:32 am · Filed under Running
You may have noticed that I have not been running an awful lot of late. You may also have noticed that this downturn in activity has been matched by an awful lot of moaning of the “my back hurts, my leg hurts” variety.
I feel somewhat vindicated as, after a spate of trips to see the quack, I discovered last week that I have some fairly unpleasant goings on in my spine.
I have somehow managed to acquire a completely unpronounceable disorder called spondylolisthesis (spon-dee-low-lis-thee-sis) which involves one vertebrae slipping forward on another, see photo of lumbar region. So far mine has only slipped 2 mm which is still sufficient to create enough pain to impair everyday activities but in serious cases the vertebrae can slip off completely so I shouldn’t complain. Of course I spent the last week practically immobile, worrying that my spine would spontaneously concertina and I would find my waist somewhere near my ankles.
Apparently the cause is often related to a small fracture in the vertebra (pars fracture) and I had to undergo further imaging to check whether this was the case. The problem is quite common in athletes but not heavily associated with running in particular, here’s an interesting article if you suffer from low back pain.
The results came back yesterday and it seems that all is well, my back had been fractured but has now healed. Which seems to suggest that my spine should be fairly stable and that I ought to be able to continue without risk of coming face to face with my kneecaps.
Therefore running is back on, exams finish tomorrow so I will be back on the streets this weekend taking part in a month long challenge within a challenge. I will post further details of this in a non-sickness and injury related post.
Still wonder how you manage to break you back without even realising it?
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Tags: back, injury, knee, spine, spondylolisthesis
February 18, 2008 at 9:43 pm · Filed under Rambling, Running
The weekend was supposed to be slothful and despite a few forgivable false starts I am still left wondering what the heck went wrong. How could I arrive back home and find myself sitting here on my sofa with multiple athletic injuries?
I arrived at Rach’s house on Friday and was immediately forced aboard the cross trainer to build up an appetite for the evenings festivities. A whole 4 calories later the Chinese take away arrived and I was allowed to kick back and enjoy my crispy shredded beef. Later, under a drunken haze I was introduced to the Nintendo wii and challenged to a ten pin bowling showdown.
Now, I have read books on ten pin bowling so like to think of myself as a bit of a bowling rockstar, you can’t just challenge me and expect to be let off lightly. Three hours later I was still calling for a rematch and was only persuaded to lay down my plastic bowling ball for a showing of the latest L Word episode (a particularly good one I have to add!).
I was up again at dawn practising on the alleys, Rach didn’t know what had hit her. Unfortunately she still beat me so I practised more while she slept. The next morning I had perfected the technique, I could get my ball to stay out of the gutter and actually managed to topple a few skittles. This perfection came at a cost though. By this point I could barely carry the weight of my own arms, I would yell out in pain every time I sent the ball bouncing towards her tv screen and even managed to pull my left hamstring as I adopted the power crouch position. I was glad to go home for a rest!
Back at home today I planned to sneak in my long run between meetings at work, they were held 10 miles apart and I thought I could probably pull off the distance quicker if I avoided public transport. I was aware of my rather tender arm situation and knew that carrying a water bottle was off limits so packed the bladder into my backpack. Setting off on a light trot down the canal I was reminded what a gruelling weekend it had been. I had to tie my arms into my rucksac just to hold them up, my triceps and deltoids were completely shot and I would have signed myself up for a full body cast at the drop of a hat.
Just to add insult to injury or even more injury to injury, my toe nail has started to peel off again. I sellotaped it up this morning in the hopes that it would help but I think I over tightened it. Even before I started running it felt like someone had dropped a darn bowling ball on my toe, I could feel every beat of my heart pounding through my nail bed. It’s like Japanese water torture.
My long run turned into a rather lame short run with a very long walk attached and I blame Rach and that silly little console.
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Tags: back, backpack, bowling, injury, wii
