A funny owd week.....

Running the Mossdale track.....

It started off well enough last Friday, the occasion of my 79th birthday (God, have I been around that long?) when my wonderful partner and I went for a  six mile run to Appletreewick and back to mark the occasion. I felt fine, energetic enough to turn the run into a fartlek session with lots of fast bursts and short uphill sprints. I was even beginning to think it was time to get back onto the track. Next year I'll be moving into the MV80 category and I'd like to have a go at the British 800m record if I can maintain my fitness. Evening was a social affair at our local hostelry, the Clarendon, where I was treated to a mouth-watering rib-eye steak and a wee drop of the hard stuff, MacAllan malt whisky, two of my favourite luxuries.

Mountain pansies

On Saturday things started to turn a bit pear-shaped. After less than two miles of a planned 10 mile run I felt an ominous ache in my Rt calf muscle. The call of a ring ouzel gave me an excuse to walk while trying to locate it but, when I started to run again, the ache was still there. In hindsight I should have quit running and walked gently back home but instead I carried on jogging but reduced the distance to less than five miles. Encountering my first ring ouzels of the year and seeing my first swifts did nothing to raise my spirits. Nor did the bright yellow mountain pansies that dotted the moorland trail.

By Sunday morning the ache had evolved into a pain as I made my way around Grimwith reservoir with a very pronounced limp. Running was out of the question. Time for rest, a bag of frozen peas and elevation. I was not a happy bunny though I was hopping - hopping mad!

...and where I'd like to be running

On Tuesday things got worse. To compound my miserable state, brought on by not being able to run, my tummy problem returned with a vengeance, so much so that I daren't for the life in me venture very far away from the loo! On Thursday, with great difficulty, I managed to make an appointment at our local surgery to see a doctor, supposedly at 11am. My regular GP was fully booked  but such was the urgency I agreed to see one of the other doctors who turned out to be a lady, a very young lady!  "She's running a bit late" I was told as I checked in to the surgery.  She sure was.  It was 12.15 and another loo visit later when I eventually got to see her - by which time my anxiety levels were rocketing through the roof.  "Are you alright with just me, or would you like someone else present" she asked as she screened my semi-nude body ready for an internal examination of the offending orifice. I felt so rotten I couldn't care less who was there. Just get on with it or, if you'll excuse the pun, let's get to the bottom of this. 

I was expecting to come away with a prescription for powerful anti-biotics but instead I was given a little tube into which I was asked to provide a 'sample' for analysis, or culture, at our local Path Lab. So, it will be another six days before we get the results by which time I'll probably have flushed myself down the loo!  

So, in the great scheme of things, did mother nature give me a nasty bowel infection to prevent me running until my calf muscle heals, or did she give me a painful limp to stop my gallop until all the nasty little tummy bugs have been well and truly zapped?  Answers on an e-card please!