And still injured, but maybe a little less

It is three weeks since surgery.  For the majority of that time not a step was run.  This has obviously not been beneficial to the remaining race plans for the year, nor my patience.

The injury still requires regular medical attention for which I continue to feel grateful and somewhat guilty.  I feel sure that the nurses could spend their time better on more pressing concerns.  I am also aware that just this three weeks of layoff has seen some interesting changes in my heart rate.  My Resting Heart Rate (RHR) has been low for as long as I have paid any attention to it, but rather than the upper thirties, it now hovers at the bottom of the thirties.  After defending the low RHR for a couple of years as a by-product of my awesome fitness, even I was a little worried about seeing the number 30 appear on the screen of a morning.

In the last couple of days, some very short and easy runs have come back.  A five miles here and three more there.  Interestingly, the RHR on the following morning looks to be a little more normal based on my personal experience.  38 is great, right?  In addition, those two runs saw my heart rate spike on a couple of occasions to levels not warranted by the effort that I was putting in.  I know that people think that running by heart rate can be limiting, and I agree at a certain level, but I also know where I expect my BPM to sit for a certain level of effort.  I can also feel my heart rate move before the watch registers it due to the lag in monitoring.  So when the heart rate jumps by 70-80 BPH in a couple of yards and sits there until I stop running altogether, I am pretty sure that this is not normal.

It will be interesting to see this figures settle down over the next couple of weeks, hopefully.  It is also interesting to have seen how a few weeks layoff, a few weeks of infection and a couple of weeks of medical remediation has make a mess of the body.

Onwards and upwards.

Still injured. Bored.

A week since surgery.  Things are apparently progressing well but it has been made very clear to me during the daily checks that running will be severely frowned upon.  At least for now.  I should have probably had that conversation prior to having been for an easy 5k.  I'd probably be going in for a better level of self-pity if I hadn't watched The Revnant prior to the operation.  Every complaint feels a bit weak in that light.

Still, I did stumble across this short film is my new found spare time.  And again, there really is no excuse to not keep moving forward.

https://vimeo.com/152971030

2016 Races 1. 2016 DNSs 2

And what was an infection then became the cause of an unplanned surgery...

The procedure to the shoulder was minor and things could have been a lot worse.  Unfortunately, the recovery is going to rule out a 50 mile run in a week's time.  It has also put paid to the daily run for the present time.

So, without even leaving Jaunary that is two races I'm manging to DNS and pretty much all of the running "resolutions" I had down the pan.  Bother.  On the upside, my training in January had been pretty good on the whole and I'm expecting to get a few little runs in during the couple of weeks I need to let the wound heal.  With a bit of luck, many of the other racing plans for the year are still doable.

Now, with idle time on my hands, how do I stop myself from sitting here signing up for countless races later in the year?