on the subject of…..the hippy hippy shakes !!!

For goodness sakes, I’ve got the hippy hippy shakes………

First post for ages.

To begin with, it was a deliberate break as I’d posted something or other about running pretty much every week for about 7 or 8 months and felt like it needed a break. I was also waiting to see how this spring and summer would shape up after doing the Wealdway in late March and switching my training to try and rediscover a bit of speed for some races. I suppose that I was secretly hoping I’d be able to report that at the age of 64 I was enjoying a bit of a renaissance and that my running was “on the up”.

Instead, what actually happened was that after three consecutive “personal worst” performances in the Staplehurst 10 miles, the Maidstone 10k and Tenterden 10k it started to dawn on me that every run – including easy training –  was being done in discomfort. A nagging ache in my right hip that first started months ago as a discomfort at night which I’d more or less ignored as it wasn’t causing me any problems in everyday life, was directly affecting my running. I was also getting pain in my left knee which was probably “referred” pain caused by adjusting my style to ease the hip pain. I took a couple of weeks off in late June/early July to give it a rest, but having already entered the Staplehurst 5 miles, I went along on 11^th July just to see how it felt. To my surprise, I had a decent and pain free run, clocking 36’ 32” which age graded at about 74%, so very pleasing and probably my best race for three or four years. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Unfortunately though, I’ve hardly run since as the discomfort has started to become a fixture. Next stop, the doctor to see if it’s a passing problem or the start of something called….. the end ?

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