Scunnered.

That just about sums up how I feel about my training over the past week. After months and months of running and training well, I had a PB in my sights for this Sunday’s Rock n Roll runs in Liverpool. Alas, that seems like it’s not to be for me. 

My sciatica is back- with a vengeance. You’ll know that last weekend was great, with a good run at the Taynish 5k and a brilliant day marshalling at the Inveraray Jail Break, but I’d been slightly sidelined by a post-holiday cold in the early part of last week. Well, the cold has just about gone (I kindly shared it with The Welsh Wookie so he’s suffering now) but my right leg began to go slightly numb on Tuesday. 

Undeterred, I headed out for a run, remembering the docs advice from last year to keep running if I could. It got worse. 

On Wednesday I had a lovely, social three miler with the Jog Scotland crew. It got worse. 

On Thursday, PiYo and VeraFlow were cancelled so I thought I’d get one last decent run in before Liverpool and so I ran a steady 10k. It got worse. 

I woke up on Friday morning with my right side- lower back, butt, leg, right down to the sole of my foot numb, tingling and in turn burning and ice cold. To make matters worse, that was joined by the same sensation in my right arm, particularly through my underarm, hand and fingers. 

I decided that I should listen to my body, ‘taper’ and hold back from running, but I managed a weird, ugly attempt at salsa on Friday evening. I’m glad I went along, but my balance was shocking. 

The pain has remained bad over the weekend, I’m not sure if it got worse last night or if it just seemed like that after a busy weekend but here I am, with 5 days until Liverpool, feeling decidedly sorry for myself. 

Since it flared up last Tuesday I’ve been foam rolling, pulse point massaging and stretching with no relief yet. I’ve made an appointment to have it checked out but I can’t be seen until 19th June. 

So where does that leave my runs this weekend? I’m still determined to take part if I possibly can. The doctor’s advice from last time should still hold true I reckon, but I’ll need to readjust my targets. My target now is to finish both runs, no more. If that means walk/running, or more walking than running, so be it. I might be very frustrated but I’m not down and out yet! 

 My plan now is for lots of R and R this week, hoping that I can RnR in Liverpool this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.

Have a good week!