Sunday 16 November 2014

Throwing away the rule book! #runstreak



So I've pretty much tried everything the last 18 months....Resting, stretching, icing, Physio, you name it I've tried it, in an attempt to get over my achilles problems.

As I said in a previous post, I was looking at people who were running every day and at the amount of days running they were accumulating and staying injury free and a seed was planted that eventually grew into me starting my own runstreak despite still suffering with my achilles.

When it comes to diet, everyone contradicts one and other. The raw foodies think they are right, the vegetarians, the Paleo's, the low carb dieters all think they are right....well one things for sure....they can't all be right!!! But when it comes to exercise everyone can agree that we should be doing something regardless of whatever shape or size we are.

It may seem like the norm to be sat on our back sides for most the day and most of us do due to our modern working lives but there is no way that this is how it was meant to be. Whether you want to harp back to the caveman days or even a lot less further back to before we had cars, one thing rings true we had to move our bodies to get around everyday.

My runstreak at the moment consists of mainly 3 or 4 mile daily runs, that's roughly half an hour of exercise each day...I work an eight hour day at a computer, so when you put it in that context even half an hour a day doesn't seem enough does it? Who needs a rest day when exercise is only taking up that amount of time each day. Sure I hope to increase the distance on some of these days but only to probably to an hour.

As well as trying out my theory that running everyday will solve my injuries, another theory I've had is that I'm going to get more benefit stretching immediately after my run when my muscles are warmed up. I stretch like a madman, pushing my calfs and hamstrings to their limits but limits that are easier to reach due to my warmed up muscles.

I'm no physio, I've gone against what a physio would tell me, I started running everyday even though my Achilles were still painful, I stretch till it hurts, all against the rule book but the most incredible thing has happened......im cured, im running pain free, well at least I am to date and I'm now on day 19 of my runstreak. I got to day 4 and that evening was still in pain, I was going to give up the next day, but I woke up the next morning expecting to get out of bed to the usual pain but nothing, and I've not looked back since!

The other nice surprise is that I've trimmed down a bit and I've not changed my eating habits, in fact I've been eating more treats than normal. I've been craving sweet things, I try to get my hit naturally by eating fruit but I've been topping up with biscuits and chocolate and still shedding the pounds!

It's early days but I'm enjoying the smaller runs and have no thoughts of stopping at the moment, in fact the goal is set to reach 100 days. There I've said it...now I've got to stick with it!

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