Last Wednesday I thought I'd go for a run early on Thursday morning to see how my calf muscle would hold up. On Wednesday night I laid out my running gear on the sofa downstairs so I could get up (in the dark) and get changed with the minimum of fuss.
But in settling into bed on Wednesday night my lower back felt a bit 'awkward'. During the night it got worse to the point where I realised that I wasn't going to be running in the morning - so I switched my 6am alarm off.
My lower back has been extremely uncomfortable ever since (it's now Sunday morning). What did I do to it? On Wednesday evening it was junior rugby training for two of my boys. My gorgeous girl (age 4) likes to come along with us sometimes, and I spent a fair amount of time piggy-backing her around the sidelines as my boys got down and dirty. I don't remember doing anything particularly silly with her on my back (certainly nothing that I've not done before) but I must have tweaked something - and quite badly.
If you're wondering what 'extremely uncomfortable' means in terms of lower back pain:
- A lot of pain/discomfort rolling over in bed. Pain/discomfort gets progressively worse during the night (yes, I have a good mattress and an orthopedic pillow).
- Very slow to get out of bed in the morning. Sharp, intense lower back pain if I don't do it gently and slowly.
- Eases off during the course of the day, but not totally.
I'm no stranger to back pain, more's the pity. I've had it on and off since my late teens. I can go years in between bouts, where sometimes the trigger for another bout is obvious, sometimes less so. Sometimes the pain can be gone in a week or two, sometimes it takes months. One bout a few years ago was being caused by my bicycle saddle (when I was riding to work regularly) being set in the wrong position. I adjusted the position, and months of back pain was gone within a week. More recently I made the pretty obvious connection (doh!) between giving my young'uns a ride on my shoulders (or soldiers, as we like to call them) and back pain, so I begrudgingly stopped that, despite it being my right as a Dad.
Yesterday I tried out the local thai health & wellness massage parlour in an initial attempt to reset or relax my back. No, they didn't love me long time - it's all above board :-) But it did involve an asian lady walking on her knees up and down my back, and unintentionally ripping out body hair. Result? Hmmm, no change. Just as painful last night and this morning as the previous 3.
In a valiant attempt to keep my glass half full, this back pain is forcing me to rest my calf muscle for longer than I intended. But the clock is seriously ticking now. I feel - I am - woefully under-trained relative to where I need to be to run my first marathon in 12 weeks time.
If I'm lucky - if I can sort this back pain out in record time - I might be back into running training in a week or two.
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