Whine | My romance with running

October 15, 2015
by amandabroughton 9 Comments

On the hard stuff

It has only just occurred to me, that running isn’t fun.

I don’t ever run with music, my head (or the space inside it) makes the music. If you see me out running this is what is going on…

Here are the lyrics for your reference:

Lalalalala lalalalaala lalalala lalalaa aaa lalalalaa lalaa lalalalalalaa lalalala lalalal laaaaaaaaa lalalalal a pam pam lalalaallaaaaaaaaa lalalalalalaa lalalalalaalalala lalalaal lalalalaa pam pam pam pam lala lalalala lalala laaaaaaaaaaaa lalalalal (x8)

Yesterday the run that my lovely coach set for me was 24km at 4.40pace, which shouldn’t be too hard, at least not at the beginning of the run.

Before I set out, I was like, uber-stressed about running wearing all-black because I had failed to plan my usual colour coordinated attire. What would Chandima think if he saw me out running in black on black with teal Nikes and no other teal! I changed my top to a teal Lululemon number (crisis averted!) and headed out the door, satisfied that I was aesthetically athletically ready to crush this longer tempo.

I knew it would be a HAAM of a run after the first 200metres. It felt like I hadn’t been stretching or rolling out my legs as often as I should ~~recently~~ since 2012. Let’s see how it goes, let’s just run at the pace for as long as you can and see how it goes. GO.

I went through a broad spectrum of emotions on this run, these are a few.

Misanthropy- Toot or ‘Awwww yeeauh gurl’ at me again and I will cut you. No I don’t have a knife, I’ll use the edge of my Snapper card. Can you not see I’m attempting to run away from you? Leave me be you lobotomised bottom feeders.

Self Loathing- Why is this hard for you? You’re just being pathetic. You run this fast all the time, why is it hard today? Probably because you haven’t brushed your hair in three days you bloody feral. You should just call it quits and go home and shave your head, it will solve so many problems.

Numbness- Perhaps not an emotion so much as a physical feeling. What is happening to my right foot? Is my shoe on too tight? If I still can’t feel it after 12km I will stop. Surely that’s a problem you just run through? Planes can still fly with one functioning engine right so I can run with one functioning foot?

Loneliness/Neglect- My usual Wednesday buddies are on different training schedules (and are maybe just a wee bit too fast) so I had to suffer alone. I would rather run a few kms behind them alone, but just with the comfort of knowing they are there. (Single tear)

Arousal- Wait, what is the opposite of this? I definitely had no runboner at any point on this run. I did admire my reflection in the window of a maroon Rav4 but it was to check my form rather than my sexiness. I’m already well aware of how sexy I am.

Amazement- Holy shit, I can feel my foot now! And I can’t feel the pain in my calves, shins, quads and hamstrings that plagued me for the first 15km. Lalalalala lalalalaala lalalala lalalaa…

Is this how it feels when people who hate running go for a run? Like a death march, like being slowly tortured by a domestic-ated abusing cat that intends to kill you eventually but wants to enjoy the process? I hated every step of the first 10km. I passed people I knew and managed to squeeze out two smiles which took so much effort that I think I dropped the pace off by ten seconds per km.

Feelings

At the 12th kilometre I turned around. The sun was going down over behind Makara and the road winding back around the coast was golden and sunny. I told myself there were lots of great things happening on this run! Look at that sun Amanda, ain’t it grand! Big old firey hellish ball up there that is never quite puts out enough heat to account for how cancerous it is.

Every step hurt, and I was still holding the pace, I just didn’t want to! I promised myself that if I finished the run and hit the goal pace I could get a new pair of racing flats which was super motivating because I don’t need them and things I don’t need are much more exciting than the necessities.

Room for another substratum of sports shoes methinks.

I have a clear understanding now of what people are feeling when they say that they hate running. If you push through these runs though you will be the little Spanish Flea tinkling around the Bays humming tunes to yourself and smiling. Just keep at it. Buy more shoes.

This is the hateful run if you want to see it.

February 16, 2015
by amandabroughton 7 Comments

You’re Crowning! I can see a head!

A week ago I was about to graduate from my ‘back to running’ program. I had been sticking to it for 95% of the time, for 90% of the program before I was placed at the start of the Blue Lake Trail in Tarawera, with a fly trail honey in a LuluLemon crop top and matching speed shorts.

Bambi running through the forest

Sunshine, pungas, a crystal Blue Lake, runboners coming from all sides after watching a few hundred crazy people run an Ultra Marathon. The mood was set, the odds were stacked against me, and I cheated the program.

A view of Green Lake from the Track around Blue Lake. You’d go there.

Running across the beech forest floor in my favourite yellow shorts, shoulders burning in the heat, sweat trickling over my lips and Hinano yelling ‘This is the banana I remember!’ as we circled the lake with fresh legs, floating feet and Colgate grins.

About ten minutes in to the glorious dream-sequence of a run I tripped on a rock/my runboner and landed almost exactly on the right side of my Pelvis. LOL. (Is Cry Out Loud a thing?) Very COL to land on the fractured side, good show.

The tiny drips of blood don’t do justice to the pain, I swear.

On Sunday the 8th of February at 9.54am, covered in blood, crying, and blinking in the bright light, Amanda the runner was re-born. She arrived two weeks early but is healthy and gaining weight. A special thanks to Hinano Andrews Runwife for overseeing the rebirth and ensuring a smooth delivery.

Aside from a few scratches I didn’t have any pain after a steady hour on the trails, you could not wipe the smile off my face that day.

I had taken the recovery very, very slowly, and I think to finish the most boring running program in existence would have been a little pointless as things have well and truly healed. Hear that? The sound of justification, let it echo around the room and bounce off the piles of running shoes on the floor and the race numbers hanging from the wall.

Squeeeeeeeee!

I am being really cautious in starting to train again, it would be easy to try pushing myself to go faster and longer but that will come back eventually. I have a new program to follow, and aside from actually STICKING TO IT AMANDA the key points are;

Increase mileage by only 10% per week
Don’t do any hard runs up or down hill. (As long as you don’t get a CR then it isn’t a hard run)
Listen to Kevin, Inge, and all the other people who know all the things
Keep up with the cross training (cycling, swimming, aqua jogging)
Buy new running gear because if I look fresh I will run fresh
Bitch out while I can. I do one KM repeat while my training group do five and I expect just as much if not more praise.
Spend my next pay on a new Garmin. Because cadence. And because if I get lost driving around Rotorua I probably need extra help with navigation.

Seven months ago my km repeats were around 3.33, now they are about 3.49. It’s not bad really, it’s the fact that you do them on a track where fifteen seconds looks like half a lap and by the time you finish your rep everyone else has had time to put on party hats and get stuck in to a chocolate cake.

Happy Birthday to a lovely Wellington running lady. You are the heart of our running community Gabs #trackparty #WHAC #birthday

A photo posted by @hinanoandrews on Feb 13, 2015 at 12:32pm PST

I am a lot more aware of imperfections in my form, and have been spending a lot of time on flexing my ~~guns in front of the mirror before I run them off in training~~ hip flexors, they are so incredibly tight right now. Physio knows best, and I have been working hard on getting things functioning properly so that I don’t get injured that badly again.

I am back to where I was a little under 2 years ago in terms of total mileage per month, but a lot slower, and not running as far. I have done it before, so I have the experience and I know I can do it again.

After my third steady run I have managed to somehow spit into the inside of my sleeve so I can tell it’s going to be a lot of fun getting back in to training. The spit, the snot, the chafe, the blisters, the toenail fatalities. Running I have missed you!

January 5, 2015
by amandabroughton 6 Comments

A Running blog by a non-runner

I’ve just passed the six month mark post-pelvis-phuck up!

I thought that when I went to Fiji in November that I would be running around the islands underneath palm trees at 5am before the sun got too hot. I thought that I would be building back up to doing a half marathon by February.

Like hell.

Having a mope with my duty free puku by the pool in Denerau Fiji

Lately I have been asking myself why I am even bothering with the rehab to run again. What for? I can walk, I can swim, I can binge watch three seasons in a weekend of Sons of Anarchy, I can do so many other things, so why focus on trying to do that one thing that my body doesn’t want to let me do? I’ve been swimming so much that my back won’t zippity zip in to my dresses. I simply can’t reach across it’s vast expanse of rippling muscles to sunblock the entire thing, resulting in patchy burnt bits.

#BigRippedBackProblems

The Podiatrist filmed me running in December so that he could see how everything was working post-injury. It feels a bit weird running, my knees get sore, and my vast muscular back has a big kink in it, but I just thought that was something to do with being unfit. Or perhaps since I’m all super buff now it’s just too much weights, not enough speed work?

I watched the video the podiatrist made, and to be putting it mildly I look like Quasimodo. He made me tuck my singlet in to my shorts for the film, just in case I had some swag left, he cleared it all right away. Everything is tilting at odd angles, and my style is completely different to when I could run. I can’t run! The Physiotherapist’s words from the day of diagnosis echo in my ears like the ghosts of Pelvis Past, ‘When you can run again, it will be like you have never run befoooorrreeeee. Neverrrrrrrrr’

I hate when other people are right, and you can specifically remember the words they used when you were scoffing at them for not being right. Good brain, remember that so you can rub it in.

I know how both the Stallion and the Donkey feel

I think it takes an afternoon of whining and tears, followed by a stern lecture to get back on track sometimes and realise how far you have come in recovery. Ben (partner in crime, BFF, minder, and race photographer) reminded me of this; Successful people always deal with failure, that failure is a part of what is making them successful. The ability to deal with it, learn from it, and move on is why you succeed. You can play it safe, don’t take any risks, and you’ll never have to fear losing something.

But why would you want to do that? If you’re pushing your body to it’s physical and mental limits, you’re going to have to toe the line, and you’re going to cross it a few times before you figure out exactly where it is. And then, of course, the line will move.

My walkrun program has been progressing at donkey’s pace. Every third day I put on my running kit, lace up my shoes, strap on my Garmin and walk to the top of my street to a grass field. I walkrun laps of it according to the dreaded program. I feel ashamed to be walking and jogging in a continuous loop, I should be out around the Bays dodging balance bikes, overtaking people doing intervals, jumping over dog poo smears and yelling ‘SCUSE MEEE! as I stealthily run up behind elderly women on their lunch time power walks.

The grassy field/prison where I complete my walkruns

Because I’m not going to be running a 90 minute half marathon any time soon, I’ve decided that six months off is enough to completely reset my relationship with running, and start fresh.

I’m going to hide my Tarawera T-shirt, my ~~participation~~ First female in my age grade with the initials ACB medals, my hydration pack (don’t need water for a 5km run kids!) and my heart rate monitor. I’m going to plead ignorance when someone asks me the difference between trail shoes, racing flats, road shoes and red bands. I’m going to run 9.87km with my Garmin and not understand why one should just run another 130 metres. I’ll stare blankly at people when they ask me what my PB is, ‘Oh it’s Fix and Fogg, I have half a jar of Pic’s Peanut Butter in my condiment cavalry too!’.

I can’t wait to ask the seasoned runners ‘How far is a marathon?’ and my favourite, ‘How fast do you run?’

Hi, my name is Amanda. I’m new here! Any advice you have on how to run would be much appreciated.

October 2, 2014
by amandabroughton 10 Comments

How to break up (gracefully) with running

We’ve all been there.

You think things are going really well in your relationship. You’re happy, you’re shouting at the top of your lungs about how in love you are. You’ve built up a tight knit circle of friends around your relationship, and you can imagine yourself growing old and still being just as much in love as you are now.

Then it’s sprung on you. Things aren’t quite as perfect as you thought.

If I could pick one way to be dumped by running, I guess it would be a majestic, meaty, long run with spectacular views, hills, and slightly overcast to add a bit of moodiness. It would most definitely just the two of you alone, just you and running.

I felt it in my heart that Sunday that things might be over. Things felt strained, something didn’t feel quite right and we parted ways earlier than planned. The next day at the physio things were bad, but salvageable. A groin strain, it would just be a few days. A few days apart and then everything will be back to normal.

My life is ooooverrrr

I am finding this breakup really hard, much harder than any break ups with human boyfriends. Running and I were quite steady for almost two years, it was intense! I would get out of bed for running at 4am, I’d stand in icy water reciting the alphabet, I’d go out at 6pm in the rain while everyone else is at Friday drinks, I’d do anything for running.

I know that others will have to go through this at some stage, so I’m offering my advice on how you can survive a break up.

1.Go on the rebound

Rebound with more pew pew than the 10c bouncy balls that you use to get at Paper Plus. Put your fingers and toes in every pie you can find and try any sport that your injury will allow you to do.

Do three sports in a day, do two at once, dabble in things you had never dared to do before because you didn’t understand them. Work out those body parts that you never knew existed, and embrace the things you ‘hated’ because you sucked at them.

I have discovered swimming, and although I can’t use my legs yet, three sessions a week over the past month has meant I have improved a lot and I’m really starting to enjoy it. The first few sessions were painful because I had terrible technique, no goggles, a bikini that liked to untie itself mid-length and I thought I could breathe underwater, but I am getting there! Pool etiquette is quite different to gym etiquette, I’ll elaborate more on that another time.

I find it hard not to be active, so swimming has been fantastic. If you are wondering why I try to keep going despite being injured, have a look at the person who half of my genes come from;

MUST. KEEP. CHOPPING.

2.Make a playlist

It’s been nine weeks and four days
Since you took my running away *cue single tear*

You will need a lot of Jeff Buckley and James Blunt to begin with, that will get the self pity going and make you feel as down and as desolate as possible. If that doesn’t make you cry in to your Weetbix, follow up with a few of these gems.

Cry me a River- Justin Timberlake
Everybody Hurts- REM
Nothing Compares 2 U- Sinead O’Connor
Hurt- Johnny Cash
Swear it again- Westlife
All by myself- Celine Dion
Iris- The Goo Goo Dolls
Never had a dream come true - S Club 7
Someone like you-Adele
Landslide- Dixie Chicks

3.Vent wisely

If you need to rant, do it to a close friend and keep it short; treat any rants like a speed session. They are necessary once a week to keep you sharp, bang it out and it’s done. Nobody wants to hear about how horrible your life is on Facebook or otherwise, because when you really think about it, it isn’t.

Don’t publicly announce your hatred for your ex-sport, because you’ll regret it later. Saying these things publicly means they can’t be taken back, and people who bear witness will remind you long after the feelings have gone, what you said. If you say bad things about running you will get bad running juju and never run another PB.

I am good at internalising the bad thoughts and only letting out the good ones. I might be smiling on the outside, but inside I’ve been running through a list of my FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFavourite expletives for the past nine weeks.

4. Set some new goals

I cried every day for a month when I was first injured. I was really embarrassed about being so upset at ‘nothing’, and the goal I had was to get through the day without any tears. That was a stupid goal! So I set myself some better goals and stuck a large calendar to my wall, this is how they are progressing so far…

Cycling – ~~in four weeks~~ No way Jose, sitting on the fracture is not happening quite yet
Aqua jogging – ~~four weeks~~ It looks like a crap time anyway, freestyle even sounds cooler than ‘Aqua jogging’
Losing the crutches ~~– 2 weeks~~ It’s been 7 weeks and we aren’t looking too good…
Being completely healed! 11 weeks (Holding on to hope…)
22″ arms - almost there! Really, I am so close.
3minute long side planks, oh hell yeah. - I’m up to 1 minute 20!

Ten inches to go!

5.Hold a funeral

Invite all your running friends. Write a eulogy. Make terrible bland sandwiches on dry white bread and serve them with lukewarm milky tea from an ugly urn. Put all your running shoes in a pile and burn them, use stinky old gym gear to fuel the flames. Make sure you get the running friends to remove their shoes at the door, ‘as a mark of respect’. Secretly burn all of their shoes too. Spread the ashes from the shoes around your favourite running routes, at the gym, and at the track. Make sure you loudly refer to the ashes as your old boyfriend when you are doing this. It’s ok to let yourself grieve, you have lost mobility, independence, time with friends, and you have nothing to brag about on Facebook any more.

6.Meditate, don’t medicate

It’s very easy when you no longer have to get up at 5am to fit in a run, to sleep in until lunch time. It’s very easy to have another wine, when you think ‘Oh, I really don’t have a reason to be vertical before 10am’, and then as if by magic, you start reverting to your student days. It starts with one beer and quickly escalates to ladling cheap vodka and apple sours from a bucket. Lying in bed is helpful if you need to rest, but doing it hungover isn’t much fun. Do something more relaxing, like watching re-runs of Full House, reading a book or have staring competitions with your cat. Retail Therapy is also nice.

Amanda is modelling a new swimming cap and togs, what did cripples do before online shopping?

7. Reclaim your pre-running habits

As above, hello vino! Remember those people you use to stay in touch with before you started putting running first? Family I think I use to call them, and there was another one called Boyfriend. Get re-acquainted with them. Read a book.

8. Stop telling the story

If I had a pre-2006 NZ 50 cent piece for every time someone asked me what happened, I’d sit on Oriental Parade with the sack of coins and throw them at the heads of the people running past.

‘What happened to your foot?’

‘I have a stress fracture in my pelvis‘

‘How did you do that?’

‘Running’

‘What? Did you run in to a pole or off a cliff?’

“Did little Benny Terry do that to ya?’- (followed by an exaggerated wink and a dopey laugh haw haw haw)

I then launch in to the reasons one can get a stress fracture, recovery time, getting stuck in door frames with my crutches and how nice the weather is outside, oh you just got back from running in it? WELL THAT’S FANTASTIC! GOOD FOR YOU! TELL ME MORE!

9.Learn a new skill

I have been doing, of all things, tutorials on how to paint my nails on Youtube. It never occurred to me that people have nice hands and nails because they spend time looking after them. I think running themed nails will have to be next…

10. Be patient

The feelings of hopelessness will fade, and one day you’ll wake up and realise that you haven’t even thought about running for a week. That week might not be the week that you were supposed to be at National Road relays, or any of the weeks you are working inside a gym, but that week will come. It might only come when you’re 89 and suffereing from memory loss, but it will come.

Have you ever had an injury? What helped you get through it? How many people did you murder?

September 2, 2014
by amandabroughton 19 Comments

Throwing a pity party, and cleaning up afterwards

I’ve thought a lot while running, about how much I love to do it, how rewarding it is, and how when you dedicate yourself to something so fully, how great the rewards are that you get in return. I’ve thought about how it’s helped me through depression, and changed me from that person who would hide in her room all day, to someone who runs outside in a crop top and posts pictures of her crotch on the internet. I’m so grateful for the ability to run, and I was so caught up in it that I never thought about what would happen when it was gone.

On Friday two weeks ago I went along to the physio. I’d had the X-rays, I’d sat through a vey lubey ultrasound in a variety of awkward positions, and every possibility of injury had been eliminated except for one thing, which was the only thing that it could be. It wasn’t the best news, but it wasn’t the worst

‘You have a stress fracture, most likely in your pubic rami. Mentally prepare yourself for not being able to run for the next six months.’

I picked this picture because the red makes it looks really sore.

After delivering the news the Physiotherapist then did some release work on my right quad with needles. I feebly pretended my tears were because of the needling and electric pulses making my leg convulse, but it wasn’t. I was pretty devastated. The Physio handed me some racy yellow crutches with instructions not to put any weight on my right leg and off I hobbled.

People like to remind you that there are other things that suck more than not being able to run for six months, ‘It’s not like you have cancer’, ‘You can still wipe your own ass’, or ‘At least your birthday isn’t on Christmas Day and people only ever give you one present’. These are people that don’t run, who see running as evil, to be avoided, and who have never felt the joy of a bag of jelly beans melting through the pocket of their tights, or the wind blowing their spit in to their ear.

To the runners, you might as well have lost the entire leg. They offer their condolences, they know exactly how hard you worked to get your running to that level, and they know that feeling you chase that you’ll now miss out on until your body agrees that you can run again.

Technical stuff

To properly diagnose a stress fracture you need to get an MRI, as it won’t show on an X-ray until the bone starts to heal. Two weeks of yoga, spin class, Pump, and walking a few kilometres each day meant that my stress fracture was definitely NOT starting to heal. To get an MRI, you must see a physician (you can’t be referred to get one from a physio or GP). I went to see Ruth Highet, a well known Sports Physician in Wellington. I took an instant liking to her when one of the first questions she asked was ‘ What’s your PB for a 10km?’ None of this ‘Why do you run so much?’ nonsense, this was someone who I could relate to.

See the white part on the upper left corner, that is the stress fracture

Ruth showed me my bones on the screen and said that if I had gone for one more run I would have completely fractured the bone, so I guess I am pretty lucky in that respect.

How does one get a stress fracture in the pelvis? There are many reasons, there may have been 120 reasons why I got one, here are a few contributing factors and I am sure all of these helped me to get my stress fracture.

Your running shoes aren’t right
Running style is not perfect
Your headband didn’t match your shorts
Too much pelvic thrusting. Wink. Cough. Elbow elbow.
Increasing your mileage too fast
You have a vagina (only females get these ones, lucky us!)
Poor or inadequate nutrition
Running 120kms a week

Ch ch ch ch changes

I have noticed changes in my body already, I FILL an A cup bra now! Badonk-a-donk. I have no visible abs any more, and my right leg is slowly shrinking and losing muscle definition with not being used. I’m beginning to look and feel squishy and lop-sided, like a pair of room temperature testicles.

I used to pride myself on munching down a giant bowl of porridge for breakfast, a foot long subway for lunch, then an entire pizza for dinner, and snacks, and pudding included. We went out for lunch on Saturday, and I had my first DNF in almost two years, I just couldn’t finish my fries. I felt so defeated, leaving that food there on the plate. Those perfect hand cut crispy potato fries with their spicy tomato sauce, lonely, and going cold, destined for the scrap bucket when they should be in mah belleh.

I have not dealt with my loss of mobility very well, and I feel really pathetic for it. Where did that strong person go? The one that could conquer mountains, the one that people told ‘You inspire me’, and why has she been replaced with this sad girl who cries and can’t finish her fries? It has been a challenge getting use to using crutches, and a few times I have thrown them away in frustration, only to have to crawl to get the dumb things back. I also get a little envious of people who can still workout, which is hard to avoid when you work inside a gym!

MjAxMy0zY2E4N2ZmZjdmNWVhN2U2_523748e0d59a5

I haven’t hit anyone with my crutches. Yet.

I think part of why I got so upset with being injured, is that I thought my happiness was directly tied to my running, and if I stopped, I would become depressed again. One day leaving the sports doctors I walked/ crutched out past a group of people playing basketball. They were all different shapes and sizes, some tall, some wide, some scrawny, and all giving each other absolute hell and having a damn good game, in their wheelchairs. Watching the little people in wheelchairs be sandwiched by the big ones and have the ball stolen from them, and seeing them keep playing with the same determination made me feel a whole lot better about my own situation, and I didn’t cry again after that.

Yes, I did buy this dress to match the crutches.

What I can do now (2 weeks in to recovery)

Swim in the pool with a pool buoy only using my arms
Very isolated glute exercises
Side planks- my most hated exercise
Crunches on a bosu ball
Arms, every day. Arms.

What I am working towards

Cycling - in four weeks
Aqua jogging - four weeks
Losing the crutches - 2 weeks
Being completely healed! 11 weeks
22″ arms
3minute long side planks, oh hell yeah.

Happy recovery to me, happy recovery to me!

August 8, 2014
by amandabroughton 2 Comments

Hurry up and rest!

Don’t have time to stretch?

Think yoga is a bore?

Cooling down is for losers, and rest days just mean your heart rate stays slightly below bulging forehead vein level?

Look after your body, or it will dump you. All those hours you left it out in the cold, those stretches you missed in favour of lying on the floor eating bananas, will catch up with you and you’ll find yourself in a lot of pain.

Last Monday I went out for my usual 10km run, and my groin hurt the whole time. I’m not great with anatomy, so I surmised that my pelvis/ hips/ womb were all under some sort of immense stress and I should stop running immediately and get straight on the Google to find out what was wrong.

I am convinced that this is going to be the last ever photograph taken of me running- Thanks Sharon Wray for the picture

As I researched ‘Pelvis pain’ a whole heap of related links popped up in my side bar with what were surely reputable and peer reviewed scientific articles such as ‘Ten signs you definitely have cancer’. My google diagnosis revealed a possible tendonitis, a groin strain, fractured pelvis, prolapsed uterus, arthritis, pregnancy, ostetitis pubis, and a hernia.

I thought I should also seek the opinion of a qualified off-line human, and went along to the physiotherapist. Kieran the physio played origami with my legs and concluded that I had strained my groin.

‘How did you do it?’ asked Kieran

‘I was running down Mount Victoria, and I felt a wee niggle in my pelvis area’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I ran for another two hours. (Sees Kieran’s facial expression and tries to change the story) I did cut my run short by at least 5km.’

‘Ok, that perhaps wasn’t the best idea to keep running. Why do you run so much?’

‘WHY DO YOU PHYSIO SO MUCH! What kind of question is that?’

I left with a sore everything, and a prescription of three days of rest with absolutely no running. Convinced that this meant the end of my running career, and that Kieran had in fact mis-diagnosed a broken femur and gangrene, I went home to sulk.

That’s me! Or is it….

What to do when you feel an injury coming on

Run through it and finish your workout, neglect to stretch at all (as always) then record your run on Garmin, Strava etc
While sitting at your desk post run analysing your Garmin data, google whatever ailment you have
Pick the worst possible diagnosis with the longest recovery time, you have that.
Use your thesaurus and a Game of Thrones novel to find grotesque ways to describe the pain so that others can know what you are going through
Since you will never be able to run again, pick a new sport, one that someone once said you could be good at. I picked Pole dancing. - It’s best if a drunk person said you were good at it.
Google pain treatments, with your broken femur and possible amputation you will need them
Sit at home alone (too painful to go outside to socialise) and swing between crying with self pity, and frowning with anger looking at Facebook updates of other people running
Watch pole dancing videos while googling how to make ‘Cannabutter’ to ease your pain with magic brownies.

I’ve been very relaxed this past week, no running at all! I’ve opted for the spin bike for some cardio, and I’ve joined a really cool little yoga studio (Hot Yoga Wellington) so that I can give my muscles a well overdue stretch. Their teachers are fantastic, and I enjoy being the sweatiest and least flexible person in the room.

Same same? I did have the heat pump on 30 degrees so it was almost tropical

I’ve also been to get a deep tissue massage, these hurt a lot. In my opinion I am pretty fearless, deep tissue shmeep tissue. I pick up spiders from my room and take them outside, I wear shorts on a cold day, I don’t measure the sugar when I bake cookies, I’m a badass. The most afraid I have felt in a long time is when being massaged with deep heat in the groin area. The burning balm was about half a centimetre from my sensitive parts, it was like being separated from a river of boiling lava by a hedge, that had been recently trimmed. ‘Be careful when you go to the bathroom and wipe’ said the masseuse. Lucky she did, because I usually wipe the paper up the length of my entire thigh then right around halfway up my back, not that day though!

Iv’e had an X-ray, which revealed nothing. I ran 2kms and felt like my pelvis was going to snap like a Kit Kat down the middle. A week later I can run for two minutes on the treadmill at a 6.30 pace without too much pain. Two. Minutes. It’s a bit annoying not being 100% sure on what is wrong and missing all the time spent outside in the sun, wind and rain running in the fresh air. In a week I will probably be running again, but just in case I’m not, I’ve started to research in to the cost of installing a pole in my living room.

How to recover from an injury

Have a positive outlook, treat your body like it needs serious healing, but think as if you’ll be back to 100% in a week
Don’t do the things that hurt, even if they are fun, don’t do them!
Extend the truth about the extent of the hurt and demand that you need to be driven everywhere as you cannot possibly walk
Be kind to your body, feed it yoga, ice cream, and inspirational quotes from Pinterest, and learn to love time with the foam roller
Point to the injury to direct where the sympathy must go, especially if it is very close to your genitals.
Realise you can still walk, and still have fully functioning legs, and just focus on what you can do!

It’s cool to foam roll

Watch this space for my triumphant return to running/ debut as a pole dancer.

July 20, 2014
by amandabroughton 8 Comments

Winning at winter running

Not so long ago, only twenty moons ago in fact, preparing for winter in the life of Amanda meant buying a good range of tea bags, making sure my scarf matched my coat, and getting the cosiest spot on the couch after work. Now it means finding the right running gear to make sure I can keep running through the hail storms, the rain, the wind, and inhospitable temperatures that are a New Zealand winter.

When I set out on a cold morning I first poke my head out the door to test the air. No matter what the temperature is I always wear the same thing; crop top, singlet or T-shirt, undies that are old and saggy so that they don’t get sucked in to my bum, an old Glassons merino from 2003, light jacket, gloves, head lamp, SPI belt, head band, socks, aaaand shoes.

I tend to over prepare, but what if? What if I’m running around the bays and sprain an ankle? I’d be metres away from fifty or so houses, a main road with regular traffic, dog walkers, and spanky spandex cyclists going by. I’d have to survive for minutes, perhaps even ten minutes in the elements before being rescued and whisked off to safety.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail! Wear all the things!

I wear my best snow storm outfit, then I set out on my way. Ten minutes in to my run it feels like I’ve stumbled in to a sauna and it’s time to re-think my attire. I pull of the headband, gloves, jacket, merino and singlet, all while still running and simultaneously checking my Garmin so that I’m sticking to the right pace. I tie these in an arrangement to my waist, tuck them in my undies, and wrap them around my wrist until I resemble the contents of a clothes dryer.

Not uncomfortable or chafe-ey at all!

Runners wear event T-shirts, they wear no shirts, they wear skivvies, jackets, woolie jerseys, gloves, hats, caps, compression socks, sleeves, bandanas, crops and tights. Runners need a whole arsenal of clothing to get them through all four seasons.

HOT FASHION TIP!

Seen around the Wellington coast, shoulders are in! Stretch your top down so that it covers your fingers, reveal your white shoulders and obvious sports bra tan line. No top has sleeves long enough. It’s as if somehow by bunching as much fabric as you can into your fists you will regain feeling in your finger tips. This also makes the top ride up above your belly button, meaning it is necessary to wear it with your longest singlet as a combo. Who’s torso and arms was this garment designed for?

Shoulder warmth being sacrificed for thawing frozen fingers

I expect a lot from my running tops. I expect that they will expand around the middle to accommodate 1.5L of banana smoothie post-run; have sleeves that act as a handkerchief, be light enough to tuck in to the side of my undies when not being worn and not pull said undies down below crack height, keep me warm, not make me sweat too much, not stink of sweat after being washed, AND make me look like an olympian.

Lululemon have a range of tops with names that appeal to (and aptly describe) me like Pace setter, Swiftly and Run Wild. I settled on the swiftly because it would look good with my banana tights (it does). These tops are light weight but warm enough to wear without a jacket, even warm enough that your nipples don’t pierce through the fabric on a cold day. The Lulu tops are pretty and nicely cut so that you can wear them in public and almost go undetected as someone who never changes out of their gym gear.

Thought I should wear my medals for this photo shoot

The best feature has to be THE SLEEVES! They are long enough to cover your wrists and they have thumb holes, holes for thumbs! It took me a few goes to work out that I need to wear my Garmin on top of the Swiftly so that my incessant checking of my pace can continue uninterrupted by excess sleevage.

Check out those CUFFS

I don’t know how I coped running through last winter. Actually I do. I was averaging 25-30kms per week so if my memory serves me correctly, I only ran on ‘Can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ days, and opted for the treadmill when the weather was crap. Fast forward one year, it’s more like 100km per week, and spending 8 and a half hours on a treadmill each week is just not that appealing.

Since I’m putting in 8 hours a week of my blood sweat and sweat in to this running thing so I’m learning about the importance of clothing pretty quickly! Requests for advice and modelling shoots can be left in the comments section.

A special thank you to Nathan Meffan for taking the photos, and to Ben Terry for your perfect aim with the hairdryer for the ‘Windswept’ glamour shots.

My romance with running

Yarns about running, as if you haven't heard enough from me already

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