The long and the short of it!

Well, the final countdown has started. Only one month to go - can't believe it's August at the end of this week. The last month has been pretty frustrating from a training perspective for me and if I'm really honest, I wondered how this would impact my performance during the actual event. It's added another dimension to the challenge as mental attitude and alternatives to running have had to play their part to ensure I could come back stronger than before. So the past week has involved focused action to get me running again.

The week started with another sports massage by the latest member of the Team Can Do Sandhu support team - Adrian at Cannons gym in Kingly St, London. In a nutshell he's mad as a brush. Adrian's a fully qualified sports masseur but also part-time actor - that's quite a unique combination when you think about it . During these sessions I never know whether to laugh at his repertoire of bad jokes or cry at the pain he's inflicting with the massage - it usually ends up a mixture of the two! It's hell at the time but he knows his stuff and definitely does a good job. Anyone still curious to find out more can see him in panto in Rochdale in December! (yes, honestly!)

Sat's already mentioned I had a doctor's appointment which we expected to result in a referral to a physio. This duly happened and on Thursday I was introduced to Emma the physio at Milligan and Hill. After many questions, prodding and measuring she concluded that the pain I'd been experiencing was due to having one leg slightly longer than the other. I'd already been aware for some time that I had been blessed with this particular condition (!) but it had never been a problem before. Seems the pressure of all the running we'd been doing had finally taken it's toll.

Fortunately the (temporary) answer was quite simple - a thick layer of cushioning in the trainer of the shorter leg. She rounded the treatment off with my first ever exposure to accupuncture. It was an odd experience and the sensation of having needles twisted gently in my leg and foot was not something I'd want to repeat too often but along with the massage, physio exercises and the trainer bolstering solution, I'm in a much better place than when I started the week.

I'm sure I'll get some stick for confessing to this but I was far happier knowing what the problem was and what to do about it rather than it being some muscular or ligament injury which would prevent me from running for the foreseeable future.

I'm seeing Hannah The Podiatrist on Tuesday and Emma The Physio again on Thursday and I guess orthotics will be the longer-term solution but in the meantime I'm running again! Anyone looking for a physio in the City of London should look up these guys as I was impressed.

After a successful trip to the gym on Friday, I figured I had nothing to lose by heading out for our regular run on Saturday. The first hour was a bit painful but seemed to wear off after that so we managed 15km in the morning and another 6km in the evening. Today we did the full 21km in one hit and this was even better than yesterday. So we've done 2 half marathons this weekend and I feel great.

Hopefully our Welsh contingent will be pleased with this posting - they'd put in a special request for more postings from me! The plan is to produce more frequent (but shorter) postings over the next couple of weeks in our final stages of training.

Jog on...