Back on the bench...

Well, seems like I was right to call canny and not push through the pain barrier. Thanks to a mid week visit to Pam at PhysioPlus (Hi Pam!) that niggling not quite right sorta feeling in the hip has been diagnosed as a trochanteric bursitis. That's inflammation of that knobbly bit on the outside of your hip that crunches on the gym floor when you're doing clamshells. It's one problem I never had when I was overweight! Despite taking it easy and cutting the running right down, that hip just kept on niggling.  It didn't hurt when I did things and didn't always hurt after a run or spin class. It did hurt after running for the train with a heavy rucksack (the joys of modern work practices!). But when a yoga class had me in agony and left me feeling jangled and not right afterwards, I knew there was something that needed sorted out. That's one of my favourite things about yoga, there's no place to hide when things are out of synch, you just know.

Luckily it's fixable, I just have to rest for a few weeks and then gradually build up my exercises again.  Nothing like the calf tear where I had no idea what caused it till months afterwards.

Of course it's irritating not to be able to run in this lovely weather when the beach is soo inviting, and our walking holiday will be a bit different than planned.  It's even more annoying that I can't spin or cross train or do anything that involves lying on my side. Its a bloody nuisance that walking hurts if I do too much or carry heavy things. I can't stand for long either and sitting - well even that hurts!  And an injury that isn't helped my yoga or Pilates? Now that does not compute. Sometimes it's good to have a good moan!

But I don't have much to complain about, a few weeks and some changes and I'll be right as rain. It makes sense that it's the hips that are in the firing line now as that's where I used to get aches and pains when I first started running. When I first hit the tarmac, I used to get a sore lower back which I now know was because I was sticking my butt out (as physio Judith explained to me, equinnus foot goes with an S-shaped spine).  Then it was the calf, then the foot, then the knee and now back up to the hip. It's all gone full circle and every time I've identified a weakspot, I've worked to correct the form, strengthen the weaker bits and stop doing what aggravates it. I suspect this cycle will keep going as long as I choose not to give in and sit and watch tv!

So I'm making the most of not being able to exercise and looking at some re balancing.  I met a dear friend for lunch at the The Rocks in Dunbar (such good food and fab company!) - that's the pic at the top. I've played with the cats and enjoyed watching them discover how to get onto the shed roof. They're still mastering bird watching with very little obvious sign of actually catching anything but I'm enjoying watching them learn - lessons for me too there I think. That's Dougal at the top - he is quite magnificent and Hamish below who is unbelievably cute. Both mad as hatters as indeed are all cats.

I've done some pottering in the garden and finally got my sweet peas in and my asparagus staked. I have 2 asparagus spears, but it's too young a plant to provide anything to eat just yet. The birds are well fed and the plants are watered.

I even got time to get to The Abbey's strawberry tea. That's Mum's wonderful residential home, and no running meant I had time to go and help out on the tombola. It was a really lovely afternoon with lots of relatives and friends gathering round the residents and what a lovely bunch of folk they are. The Staff are quite wonderful and do all they can to make Mum's and her chum's lives about living not existing.  The place is currently fixated with the emergence of a clutch of young chickens from eggs incubated in the hall. There's been a buzz every time one hatched out and there's always someone sitting watching them.  It doesn't take much kindness to transform a life.

So  I'm back on the bench, waiting to get back to form, trying to be positive about not being able to exercise when there is lovely sun and NO WIND. I know that I have a  tendency to rely on exercise as a crutch to get me through the hard times and keep my body in shape. Yet again I can't do that and yet again I must really learn to get to grips with it. But as the cats melt in the sun and I head off to potter in the garden, I count my blessings.

Hope you're all having a good week and have sun where you are, What must it be like to live somewhere where it's sunny all the time!

Take care

Suex