Physio visit and "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook"

(I won't mention Boston on here, except to say watching the footage on TV was very disturbing and I hope the people who caused the carnage are caught soon.).

I got a slow 8-miler in yesterday and although still a bit of an issue with my knee, there were no real issues the morning afterwards so I think I'm definitiely on the mend and I'm now back to being 75% sure I'll turn up to the start line of my marathon.

I did see a physio today and she was very good.  I haven't had much luck with physios in the past but this one seemed to know what she was doing.  I had kind of practiced what I was going to say and I started by saying "I am a runner and I don't want to stop running, but I've got this issue….", as I didn't really want to be told to stop running.  She was a runner herself, so knew where I was coming from.

I think I've basically been doing the correct stretches, although she has added another one that I'll have to ask my wife to help me with (I have to kneel with someone holding my heels and then let myself fall forwards in a controlled way).

The physio diagnosed the issue as "hamstring enthesopathy", and recommended getting some Ibuleve gel as well to work into where the hamstring meets the knee.  I haven't been taking Ibuprofen and she recommended against doing so.  She did want to tape up my leg, but she couldn't as my legs were too hairy and the tape wouldn't stick...  The physio did recommend getting a sports massage done so I'll look into that and also to continue with the icing.

Importantly, she didn't tell me not to run so all-in-all I'm happy.

After a recommendation from a friend, I've also got hold of a copy of "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" which seems very good, and I've started using some of those techniques with my stretching/self-massage.  In summary, it's a book that shows through diagrams of the joints/muscles where pain can come from.  Often, according to the book, the root cause of a pain may actually originate from somewhere else in the body.  I.E., a knee problem may originate from a thigh trigger point, or a heel issue may originate from a calf trigger point.  The book basically uses massage techniques to ease these trigger points and hence help with the pain.

So, all-in-all, things are looking up.  All being well, I'm aiming for an easy 5-miler tomorrow, 14 or so on Friday and then another 5-miler on Sunday.