Another fine example of how ‘slow and steady’ will win the race - by Katie

Injury 

I was forced to stop running for nearly two months recently after experiencing hip pain/tightness. My physio did her job releasing tightness and prescribing a program of stretching and strengthening exercises to get my buttocks (gluts) working properly. After testing it out with a few long walks I wanted to start running again and was keen to get back into 10km fun runs as soon as possible. However I was scared about being sidelined with injury again if I went too hard, too fast.

Katrina suggested I try the Couch to 5K program to gradually ease back into it. So I downloaded an iPhone app. The App was labelled as ‘Couch Potato to 5km runner” and is an 8 week long program with 3 workouts a week to gradually get you from alternating walking with short interval runs, to a continuous 30 minute run. I was not exactly a couch potato because I had been keeping up my weekly Fix classes, an outdoor boot camp and weekly swimming squad sessions. So I toyed with the idea of skipping to week 3. Instead, I started at week 1 but moved through the ‘weeks’ a bit faster. 

Frustration

At first it was FRUSTRATING. I really enjoyed the run intervals but at only 1-2mins long I was only just getting into them before the App told me to start walking again. I just wanted to keep running. I had to keep telling myself that the end goal is to run 5K without reinjuring myself and I had to be patient.

Even though I thought I was fairly fit, the run intervals did start to get a bit harder from week 5. I guess my cardio fitness had dropped a bit. (Before injury I was exercising 5 times a week, including 3 runs). So from then on, I stuck to the prescribed 3 runs scheduled for each week.

I had a few weeks towards the end where my hip was sore again. I gave myself a couple of extra rest days but still finished the program in around 8 weeks. 

Success

It felt great to finally do the 30 min, 5km run and be back into running.

In the month since then I’ve been doing 3 runs per week, between 5-6kms. I have had a few niggles of pain & tightness and have had to accept that I will always need to keep up my strengthening exercises & stretches if I want to run regularly. It needs to be a permanent part of my schedule but I think it’s worth it to be able to keep running.

The final word

Now Katie and I are running again! We have our 10k fun runs lined up for the coming months and it is great to have these as our next set of goals. It’s all about finishing each one and with a hopeful PB!

If you are keen on starting your own running program to improve fitness, get ready for the City to Surf, or Blackmore’s Bridge Run in September, now is the time to get started. Here are the Apps we suggest.

Here we are together at a recent fun run in Balmain.

http://c25kfree.com/ (watch the ads popping up regularly)

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/c25k-5k-trainer-free/id485971733?mt=8

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/run-10k-interval-training/id350529744?mt=8 

A big thank you to Katie for sharing her pacing experience.

What really goes on with one of the most common causes of persistent pelvic pain

Endometriosis is one of the most common gynaecological causes of chronic pelvic pain. It occurs in a whopping 1 in 10 women and has a ridiculously delayed diagnosis of 7-10 years!

So what is endometriosis? Isn’t it just killer cramps? It will get cured by getting pregnant, right? It means you can’t have babies, right? Wrong. These are just some of the common misconceptions surrounding endometriosis.

Let me break it down for you. You’re never too young to get endometriosis. There is a genetic link to it, which means if your mother, grandmother, sister or aunty has it, chances are you might have it too. This means it’s part of our genetic makeup and as soon as you have that first period, whether you were 16, 13 or even 10, you’ll know it. I should mention though that not everyone with endometriosis gets pelvic pain.

This brings me back to my first question. What exactly is endometriosis? Think of the cells that make up the lining of the uterus – in a normal person these cells exist exclusively in the lining. In a person with endometriosis, cells that are similar to the cells of the lining exist in other places too. This means they can be found on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the bladder, the bowels, in the vaginal walls, on the pelvic ligaments inside your pelvis, in the Pouch of Douglas (which is the space between the uterus and the bowels) and funnily enough can even be found in places like your lungs and diaphragm too! These cells all over the place will act like your cells do with your monthly cycles.

If you think about all the places this tissue exists it’s no wonder women with endometriosis present with a myriad of symptoms! Some of the common symptoms include:

• Heavy, prolonged and irregular periods including spotting between periods.
• Painful periods – the “I can’t get out of bed – it feels like I’m being stabbed over and over again – it feels like its shredding” type of pain.
• Painful sex (during and after) – to the point that you just don’t want to have sex anymore.
• Pain with bowel movements (sometimes only during periods) – including intolerances to inflammatory foods e.g. dairy, wheat, soy and sugars - it feels like you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with the chronic bloating and constipation and bouts of diarrhoea.
• Painful urination during periods.
• Pelvic pain – over time the pain can cause the muscles and connective tissue around the pelvis, back, tummy and hips to become sore. You can start to get changes in your muscles too, including pelvic floor spasms and tension.
• Infertility.

Interestingly enough, not all women with endometriosis experience symptoms. And the severity of their symptoms is not related to the severity of the disease. For example, you can have a woman with Stage 4 endometriosis (the worst!) that experiences minimal pain and the only reason she finds out she has endometriosis is trouble falling pregnant; and another woman with Stage 1 endometriosis (the least severe) who experiences incredibly severe amounts of pain. The severity of endometriosis is classified according to the location, extent and depth of endometrial tissue, the presence and severity of scarring called ‘adhesions’, and the presence and size of ovarian endometriomas (“chocolate cysts”) but not the presence of pain.

The management of endometriosis is multi-disciplinary which means many health professionals may need to get involved to help you out. It can involve the GP, gynaecologist, physiotherapist, dietician, and pain specialist.

Women’s health physiotherapists play a large role in pain management. If the woman with endometriosis experiences painful sex or chronic pelvic pain, a women’s health physiotherapist with a specialty in pelvic pain can help to treat the musculoskeletal concerns externally and internally.

If you are experiencing pain within your pelvis, buttocks and hips and you are concerned about it, speak with Heba at The Fix Program for women’s health.