spell of bad luck continues

I do not want to sound a whining kind of person, since overall I enjoy a very good life...
but runningwise, the past 2 months are going from bad to worse...

the spell of bad luck which begun on July 19th continues at full speed...

- last week: run decently while in Europe, the hamstring and glutes were starting to get better even if I still could not handle any fast pace... foot pain had his ups and downs..

- week-end: between the trip, jet-lag, etc.. I decided to skip running for 3 days to give some time to the body to completely heal (foot, hamstring, etc...)
I also feel refreshed by the fact that I have now fairly understood the root cause of each problems, thanks to the excellent running gait analysis done at strideUK (more about that in the next post...)

- Monday: for no apparent reason, my back become very stiff and painful ... I did not lift any weight or did anything strange, but I was completely blocked...

I tried the usual therapy, without much success...

The attempt at a releasing back massage on Wednesday was almost pathetic and funny at the same time: once the massage was over, I could not get up from the massage bed... the massage therapist was in tears fearing that she could have been sacked for screwing up the back of a foreigner; so she called other staff and they together handled me like I was a wooden pole to put me back in vertical position...

Thursday I got some benefit from doing some electro-stimulation of the back and at least I can walk properly...

so... another week of total screw-up and going from bad to worse...

Weekly totals: 0 Km run, 0h0' bike, 0'0' gym....

Due to a lot of time spared from being incapable to run/walk, etc I had the time to read 2 books on Kindle

1)
Charlie Spedding

From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion

This is a real interesting book... Spedding takes the time to write about all his career from childhood race to his retirement. It is very interesting how he describes all the mental obstacles he overcome to become a Olympic medalist. He was for sure a talented runner, but not really achieved much until later in his career when he "changed gear" mentally. It is also very down to earth narration, very humble and without the hype and self-celebration typical of these kind of books
All his ups and downs are well narrated and makes it a compelling read...

 

2) Running For The Hansons: An Insider's Account of The Brooks-Sponsored Marathon Training Group Made Famous by Olympian Brian Sell

Sage Canaday is a runner in the Hanson-Brook team and gives this narration of his everyday life as pro runner who tries to make a breakthrough into "real" Elite running, while having to work to anyway cover the bills, etc
The book is written in the form of daily journal and while it will not win a Nobel Prize for literature, it is a good easy read...
It is somehow interesting to see how just below the real elite level, the life is quite harsh and the guy basically just live around "poverty line"..
We might read about the Alter-G and Aqua-treadmill of some runners, but this guy does not even have time/means to do some gym...
Interesting to read also how their training schedule is based on 2 days easy/1 day hard without sticking to a static weekly schedule...
Lastly, I like how he candidly tells about his personal opinion on several aspects and how it might be difficult for a person coming from West or East Coast in USA to go and live in an area like Michigan with much different set of community values...