Hi blog followers and welcome to another weekly addition of my blogs for Coach Ray Boardman’s Qwik Kiwi Website and my Facebook Pages of ‘John Humphries’ and ‘UltraHumps’. “An Injury Is Not An Excuse To Not Train” – Jeff Wilson, All Black.
As mentioned in my blog last week, I appear to have recovered from a nagging injury which would normally stop people in their tracks. Over-pronation in my left foot meant I could still run or fast walk on it, but it was post-activity that it would give me grief where I could hardly walk on it, lasting for some time. I recall reading Jeff Wilson’s book “Seasons of Gold” where there was a photo of him with a wrist cast on riding an Exercycle, the comment was An Injury Is Not An Excuse To Not Train. It is simple, still train with caution or find other activities where you train and won’t aggravate the injury. The problem with myself (Aka Humps), is for those that know me, I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes to save myself. So I said to the Physio “don’t tell me I can’t, tell me how I can”. He said “patience sounds like your biggest hurdle”.
We cut a deal, the Physio said (1) “you can swim in the little swimming pool you have with bungee chords tied around your ankles”. He probably thought I wouldn’t cause of the heat. Man it was like swimming in a hot bath, I’d get out after 15 mins from a the pool and the sweat would be pouring off me. (2) “You can ride the mountain bike within the base”. I found a 50 km cycle track in the desert with better paving than roads in New Zealand and borrow a road bike for a packet of Tim Tams. (3) “You can walk on the roads and the treadmill within the Base, no running”, I measured out a 16 Km circuit, cause the Physio didn’t say how far, and I wanted to get the 1,000 Km Challenge Finishers free T-Shirt. This is the part where Coach Ray proof reads our blogs and starts rolling his eyes back!
Now I am less than 10 Km’s to go to get my free T-Shirt. 90% of the distance has been fast walking, cause I learnt pretty fast you can’t bull$hit the Physio, and they have those things called dry-needles to keep us in line. So within my last 50 km’s of the 1000 Km Challenge the Physio has moved me up to Run / Walk on a Treadmill and only walking on roads. As this has been working well with no after effects, I should be able to increase the running distance as far as time and speed goes and reduce the walking distance as far as time goes (with the Physio’s agreeance). Hopefully the Physio will let me start running on the roads again, even if it is a ratio of run 1 power pole and walk 1, etc. The Physio said “Patience – Stick To The Plan” and agreed with me ‘An Injury Is Not An Excuse To Not Train‘ (The Physio being an Australian, if only he knew I read that quote from an All Black).
Stay tuned team as I continue my journey, regards John Humphries (Aka UltraHumps)!
UltraHumps will be writing weekly blogs as he continues his journey raising funds for Charitable causes.
Read Humps article from last week here:
All his previous articles are stored here: