Category: Tony’s Reports

Since my last post i had decided to listen to my body, take the time out it was telling me it needed, so I did, took about 3 weeks off in total with a few single day runs thrown in just to test the hip and lower back out, until it felt right agian, I did take some NSAIDs to get me over the initial discomfort, I was never a big fan of them until I had my hip operation last year, during the first couple of weeks post op they were a godsend, so Im more likely to use them for relief than I was before. Obviously aware of the side effects. Anyway, I got back to running about 6 weeks ago, and Im not training with any real consistency, managing about 15miles per week, my groin still niggles and adductors a little tight after runs, but during runs lately I have been feeling little or no pain, taking regular days off is making all the difference. I would say my hip is not too far away from being as good as I can expect it to be, about 90%.

Just back from 3 days golfing in Mallorca (Island off the South East coast of Spain)…. if any of you are golfers out there I can recommend it, Arabella Golf resort, fantastic. The hip stood up to all that twisting motion, and I also had a few beers in the Spanish sunshine, when I think about how I felt 1year ago, compared to how energised my life is now I do not regret my surgery one bit.

The single morning run I managed, nearly got run down crossing the roads, don’t you know the left is the right side to drive on !!! 🙂

My cherished “Nike Zoom Marathoner” …. discontinued line, sourced at great time and expense by my wife, got pinched from outside my patio door (we were on the ground level) …. missing them already … or maybe they sensed I had been cheating on them by looking at Adidas Adios online !… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Havent posted for a while, my intention was to eventually get to a race and
post of a heroic performance, but alas that has not happend, would be nice
and I still see it as a possibility but not in the immediate future.

Since my last post I had gone from strength to strength running 20miles
per week, with no real issues to speak of for about 7 weeks, then pushed it up to
30 per week, managed to get my 5mile run time down to 32:08, and was feeling
pretty good, but 2 weeks of 30miles took there toll on my hip and everything
on the right side has really tightened up, from my adductor to the outer hip bone round to the base of my back.  Tried initially to run through it but it wasnt
clearing so I have now had to take a step back and stop, I have to consider quality of life in the long term, over short term running gain.  SO I will take a week or two off and get back to the gym or the pool  and try to keep the conditioning up, hopefully this is nothing too sinister and I will be back on the roads soon, but one lesson I have learned as the result of my setbacks over the past 18months is, when my body speaks, its time to listen.

Good luck to everyone else, I’m tuning in with interest.

 … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

From a rehab point of view, of late,  I havent really stuck with my exercise routine around hip strengthening, Ive always been of the ilk that running is the silver bullet for all ailments
and now that I can run again Ive slipped into the old habbit of running at the expense of
all other exercse forms, so far so good, but I have decided this last week to make time
for a couple of gym sessions to keep up the core work and ensure everything about the hip
and groin remains as strong as possible.

This blog is great, its my only real point of reference, so, as has happened today with
some light discomfort in the hip/groin, I can check back to make sure that I am still making
progress, its easy to forget how you are progressing unless you strcitly document it,
todays pain for example has come after a 5th straight day of running, 20miles
in total over the past 5 days is far more than I could have hoped for at this point, and a look
back at where I was keeps me positive that everything is heading in the right direction,
but this slight discomfiort has reminded me of the importance of rest in my rehab.

Ive been attending (as a spectator) the weekly parkruns local to me on Saturday mornings,
I have documented this on a previous blog, this week was a triumph for the fairer sex as
Joasia ZAKRZEWSKI came in a close second overall and comfortably beat several of my
team mates into the bargain , all the while running with a tee shirt on the back of which she
had written  “come on boys – keep up” .. made me chuckle 🙂

Now that I have started to do 4milers on a semi regular basis, I am tempted to increase
the distance and intensity of the workouts, as noted, a few guys from my running club (Irvine AC) have been doing the parkruns, so inevitably the questions of injury and recovery raise ther heads in conversation, they are all very … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Since my last post where I managed 2 miles brisk on the treadmill I have tried
to build on that by running roughly 3 days per week. The treadmill seems to
compliment my recovery as a couple of 3mile runs on the roads have left me
with recurring addutor tighness and pained pubic symphesis which has taken
several days to lessen after each outing.  I know I am making progress as what
I would consider “hip” pain really no longer exits, what I am left with is the
lingering residual issues I have mentioned above.

The confidence gained from completing runs with less discomfort is great
for my mental wellbeing, hence I make the 6mile trip to the gym and the roads may
have to wait for a couple of months. I’m only really managing 2miles, with
the occasional 3miler thrown in but its a bit unconfortable so Im happy
to make progress when my body tells me its ready. I know that I will get back
to decent mileage sometime, but not as soon as I thought, the body of a 44 yr
old takng time to heal

At a local level, there has been an interesting development , the “parkrun” series
has  extended its tenticles to deepest darkest North Ayrshire.
The concept started back in 2004 at Bushy Park in London, and has gained
momentum, over sunsequent years. The principle is to provide anyone in the local
vicintiy a chance to run a weekly timed 5k, its run by local volunteers and the
whole thing is hooked into the parkrun website at www.parkrun.com.
The attraction of the event is that its free, no prizes, no rewards, simply the
satidfaction of your own personal target, whatever that may be, so although
the elite runners tend to avoid it, the participation levels on a weekly
level are on a par with any local “pay for” 10k event.

On a personal note my wife Penny was the first in my family to have a go,
and completed last weeks coarse in 37minutes, slightly disappointed, shes upped
the miles (from zero over … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

I think it would be fair to say that I am farily competitve within my peer group,
I have kept a keen eye on people who I consider to be local rivals, guys my age
or there abouts who I like to think I am on an even par with in running terms,
and over the last 6 months, as I have batteld with injury, and hopefully recovery
I have watched some disappear off the radar and others go from strength to strength
as their bodies hold together and allow for that all important consistent level
of training that allows our bodies to apapt and improve.
This weekend gone saw a bunch of my contemporaries running some great times
at the Alloa half marathon, guys who only last year I was competitve with are setting
PBs in there 40s.
Surprisingly, I dont feel jealous (well perhaps a little) but much more than that I was
motivated, I realised that there is a great running scene out there, full of age groupers
still willing to put in the effort and push there bodies to bigger and better things.
From my perspective, I was a little naughty, I have been jogging /walking on the
treadmill probably 4 days per week over the last 3 weeks, my impatience however got
the better of me on Saturday (16th March) and I blew away some cobwes with a 12:47
for 2miles ….. 6:14 last mile …. it was by no means easy and, after jogging on Sunday
and doing an easy 3miles yesterday (27mins) my groin is somewhat tender.  So I will
listen to by body and take some time off.
I am not running pain free but I feel that Im not getting any worse, its a strange kind of
purgatory at the moment, hopefully Im on the way up, rather than the way down ! 🙂… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Keeping up the regime of going to the pool and stretching seemed to be making no difference to my groin and adductor, so I backed off for a couple of weeks at the end of January and doped up on some anti inflamatories, this seemd to make a difference, and eased things off a little, not sure if it was more to do with the rest than the drugs, but I was pepped up and ready to resume the road to recovery

By week 23 I was back in the gym and walking on the treadmill and out of the pool, putting more weight on the hip as the pool running was great for the action, but I need to move things on a little and try getting more weight on the hip, so this was the next step forward and it was fairly pain free, its all a bit trial and error at the moment, not following any prescribed protocol, im just using one guiding principle … make progress

Like most of us runners I have a long suffering other half who puts up with smelly running shoes at the front door and washing machines worth of training gear, she is more than aware of my passion and gifted me for xmas tickets for the January indoor international athletics quadrangular match between the UK, USA, Russia and RoW …..at the newly created Emirates Aren in Glasgow, the highlight of which for me was going to be a glimpse of the legandary Bernard Lagat, who would be running in the 3000m. At 38 he is still at the top of his game and was pitted against Augustine Choge so was going to be no procession, ealry pace was steady, but he “rolled back the years and moved through the gears” over the last 300m to run out a convincing winner, he followed this up with a humble interview and firmly instilled himself as one of my favourite athletes

With my half year post op looming large on the horizon the demons inside of me were telling me I was long … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

If Im honest I was not looking forward to this trip, 14 weeks post op
but its perhaps only in the week prior  that I felt any sort of improvement
My wife had arrangd assisted support at Newark airport and an isle seat so
I could strecth out my affected leg during th flight. I felt like such a burden.

I tried to get up as much as possible and walk around, keep the hip mobile and
as loose as possible, wont bore you with the details of the trip except from a hip
perspective, on day 2 I walked/limped for about 4miles, the best I had done
before leaving home was 1/2mile. I was sore the next day and took it easier and iced
a lot,  then managed another 3miles on day4.

This was a real breakthrough, I was still limping, but the chronic tightness in the flexors had loosened off a little and for the next 6 weeks I continued with the pool activity
coupled with hydrotherapy PT.   The pool activity was mainly jogging and over christmas
I introduced some treadmll walking there was tenderness in the groin and the right
adductor was still rock hard no matter how much stretching I did.
But overall there is progress Im walking better, with less limp. The biggest surprise to
me is the amount of time this has taken to recover , compared to some of the
folk posting here with THRs my rather less severe FAI is taking longer to heal.

Roll on 2013, got to be better than 2012.… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

After 2 weeks rest I hobbled my way crutches and all to a specialised unit at Glasgow Southern General hospital.

My consultant works closely with a PT team who are rehab specialist, and use a pupose built heated indoor pool to treat their patients, this hydrotherapy was not part of my initial protocol but was now included.

I went along and was introduced to the team, they were friendly and welcoming with a realistic but very positive approach, one which if I am honest I needed, as the last 5 weeks had seen a decline in both the physical and mental posture of my recovery, The basic concept was to control the weight bearing load on the hip allowing a range of exercises to work on both hip flexibility and strength. The pool had 3 stepped levels allowing the patient to reduce or increase weight as they changed depths. The flexibiilty exercises were based on the use of a  float (rubber ring) to attach around the ankle, bouyancy forcing it to the surface,  increasing your range of motion as it goes, allowing a greater stretch than one can achieve through dry land exercises.

I was somewhat sceptical, but nevertheless was keen to get my recovery back on track,
and was scheduled there twice per week.

The first couple of sessions were ok, quite strenuous actually, much more than I had done outside of the pool, after 2 weeks I was still walking with a limp, flexors and adductors/groin  were tight  and the most I could walk without discomfort setting in was about 1/4 mile, but it was progress, I bought my own rubber ring and began going to the local pool over and above the hydrotherapy sessions, I was doing 5 days per week in the
water, and started aqua jogging with a floatation belt, very slow cadence (78 strides per minute) for 25mins. After 4 weeks of hydrotherapy I was improving (if slowly), our much awatied New York trip was on !… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

The FAI procedure is usually keyhole (arthroscopic) surgery, a couple of 1cm slots either side of the outer hip, a large boot for pulling the femur out of the joint and in go the carpenters.

My surgeon was fairly relaxed and matter of fact about the whole procedure, “someone like you” he said after it was all done “someone like you will be fully active again in 12 to 20 weeks”. That was great news, my GP had told me to expect a 1year lay off, so I was delighted at this projection. With that sentence ringing in my ears I was sent home, with vaguesih instructions to rest, yet try to move the hip gently and fairly often, no weight bearing for 2 weeks, then contact local physiotherapist for the post operative recovery protocol.

I duly obliged, but was in no position to lose the crutches in 2 weeks, took me 3, even then I was dubious .. I visited the physio for PT and was given a list of exercises to increase my range of motion, and my hip strength, these in the main I completed, and until week 5 was making some improvements, walking was getting better, yet the hip steadfastly refused to losen off, I had extreme tighness in the flexers and adductors, which would  not go away, and when sharp groin pain when full weight bearing going up steps forced me into protective walking I began to develop what they call a “trelenberg gate”. I seemed to be in a spiral of decline.

Neary 8 weeks in and I returned to the surgeon for my review, I outlayed my symptoms and concerns, the shooting groin pain was my main worry so to put my mind at ease he x-rayed the hip, to find a hairline fracture across the neck of the femoral head…. the worst possible scenario …  on 2 counts, first my wife (Penny) had to cancel her visit to Ireland to see her friend, second he was already making plans for emergency surgery to insert a plate and screws to stabilise the femur, … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

I feel a bit of a fraud not having a THR, but I have had hip surgery, and this is all about helping others by sharing our own experiences, so thanks to Tom for allowing me to post on his inspirational blog, here is my story …..

…..I watched the great Aussie swimmer Ian Thorpe being interviewed by the BBC prior to the Olympics and he was asked if swimming was what defined him, to my surprise he unequivocally said “No”.

Now, I have a great family who I love and cherrish, I have close friends without whom lifes experiences would not be shared, but if I were pressed to deliver a single word that defines who I am, I would not say husband, father or friend, I would say ….. “runner”.

With that in mind, my last run was on 1st March 2012, finishing around 7:51pm, but whose counting.

I had been getting increasing groin pain in the months leading up to that point, reducing my running from daily to 3 times per week in an attempt to get whatever the issue was under control, but to no avail and on that crisp Tuesday evening I embarked on a club run which I am now hoping will not be my last. 8miles completed in a shade under 51mins, however, when I stopped I could hardly walk.

I had a history of groin pain, and mild dose of Osteitis Pubis 2years before but this was different…. woke up the next day and could put no weight on my right leg, something was seriously wrong.

It took me a week or so to get moving properly again, as things were badly inflamed. It settled somewhat but it would not disappear, I had sharp pains on internal rotation and over the next few months I tried multiple session with my local physio but nothing was really helping, I could still walk but would get to 3miles and the groin would start to ache. Eventually felt that the only way forward with this (ie Getting back to running) was to see an Orthapaedic … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)