Antartica Marathon starts in 
| Progress report |
| Friday, 17 January 2014 22:29 |
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18th January 2013
50 days to go until Antarctica (only 36 to Caracas!) I had a scan on my foot this week - plantar fascia tear, swelling and many small gaps in it, a large calcaneal spur confirmed on XRay, and similar pathology on the right side as well. Yikes. I was hoping the scan would show me that there was little wrong and that it is all in my head! I ran a grand total of 38 km in December, just short runs to check the progress on the foot. I have run more this week, including a 2 hr run last Sunday - my longest run since the Amsterdam marathon. I plan to do 26km tomorrow. After that, perhaps 1x 30km run will do me for the proper long runs. I think I'll get on the bike (I need to get it back from a friend) to get more km in my legs, even though it is such a different pattern, but I can't do the running km I normally would.
I'm pleased my endurance is not too bad. I'm pleased my hip feels good now. I'm pleased I can do any of this any way. I am not pleased that my shoes of choice for everyday wear are now sneakers, but I can live with that :)
Running on this foot is not ideal. If I didn't have these deadlines, I wouldn't run at all right now. But I think the risk of rupturing completely is low, so long as I am conservative in my training. I certainly hope I don't rupture it in South America! I do have insurance, bought months and months ago.
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This weeks links
The Cancer Council came out this week and announced that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and that alcohol should be considered to be as carcinogenic as smoking and asbestos are. As well as being highly associated with throat and mouth cancers, it is now found to correlate highly with breast and bowel cancers. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that a substance that can so alter mood and ability, even at very mild levels should turn out to be in fact, not good for us.
This story, an editorial from the British Journal of Sports Medicine earlier this year has some amazing targets - it ties in with our look at sitting and health, and is about developing healthcare systems that support exercise - recognise it as being as vital a measure of our health as is blood sugar levels or blood pressure. It recommends 150 minutes of physical activity per week for adults as a minimum. 30 mins on 5 days. For children, it is 420 mins / week - 60 minutes every day. How close are you?
This is another article on inactivity / obesity and health from Sports Medicine Australia, highlighting the link between an inactive childhood and a lifetime of battling depression. It is food for thought (!) these days where there seems to be much paranoia about safety of children away from their parents watchful eyes, and therefore a tendency to want to keep them closely under watch instead of encouraging more activity and indeed risk taking behaviours. The ability to judge situations for risk and to be able to take appropriate risks builds self esteem and resilience. Not much to do with bowel cancer awareness, but close to my heart as well.
Another article on sitting
This one is in really simple terms - if you walk 30 mins (as recommended) and sleep 8 hours, most of us still have 15.5 hours per day not moving. You cannot sit all day behind a screen, then drive your car and sit and watch tv with out it being bad for you. A good read.