Tuesday morning session - 6 x 1200m

What a difference 200m makes! Or 40 seconds! Stubbornly, I set off this morning down to Manly Beach front in light rain to progress the session that I completed two weeks prior - 7 x 1000m with 1:15 recovery between sets. Averaging 3:07 min/km for the former, in hindsight it was perhaps too ambitious to attempt to replicate the same pace for an extra 200m per rep, given the same recovery period. The first effort was bang on 3:07 pace, but unfortunately that was it for the session. That horrible feeling of lactate accumulating in the legs - the annoyance of your legs not listening to your brain when commanding them to turn over quicker! That's exactly how I felt as the session progressed, with the second to sixth intervals progressively getting slower - 3:10, 3:15, 3:19, 3:20, 3:24 (Average = 3:16 min/km). Nevertheless, all were completed with a relatively short 1:15 minute recovery. Having last completed this session in 2013, my previous best average for the session was 3:17 min/km pace - however this was off a 3:00 minute recovery. Looking forward, I have set a baseline today, and know exactly where I stand for this session. I will replicate the session next Tuesday morning, but rest re-establish my target pace to average around 3:13 min/km, and build from there. Recovery run for 40 minutes this afternoon - hopefully the rain holds off.

Monday morning recovery run

60 minutes easy this morning. Actually felt great the from the very start - something that is extremely rare for a Monday morning, especially following a solid weekend of training. Perhaps the unplanned 'recovery' week last week played a hand in that. Nonetheless, I hope that this feeling can last until at least Saturday.

Sunday long run

Early start this morning, with the alarm going off just after 5:30am (well, definitely early for a Sunday morning). Ran with the Manly crew this morning, with a great turn out of 9 runners, myself included. A steady 29km run from Boy Charlton Pool at Manly to North Narrabeen and return. Nothing spectacular in terms of pace, but just great to get out their and spend some time on my feet (with some great company of course) after a horrible week. Let's hope for a consistent, solid week ahead!

Saturday morning session - 5 miles at goal 10km race pace

I don't know what it was this morning? Was it the cool temperature? Was it the fact that being sick during the week forced me to actually rest & recover for once? Was it the fact that I have reverted back to my old university day lunches of two avocado and vegemite sandwiches? Whatever it was, I felt absolutely gold this morning, and had a great session. Returning to Sean Williams' squad at Centennial Park after a month of training solo at Manly, a threshold session was on the cards. Given my terrible week suffering from the stomach bug, the goal this morning was to simply stick to 3:25 min/km pace for 6-8km. After 2km, I was feeling strong and looked at my watch - which read back to me 3:13 min/km pace. I thought it must have been a typo, but kept running and decided to see what I could hang onto. It gradually crept back to 3:15 min/km by the 7km mark, and so decided to hang on for an extra km, finishing at an average pace of 3:16 min/km for the 8km. This was an extremely encouraging run, as I definitely could have held this for another 2km if I had to (although, it would have hurt a lot)! I have learnt over the years (unfortunately through more error than trial) to really listen to my body - so light of being sick during the week coupled with the fact that I want to race next Saturday, there was little point in going for personal glory in running a 10km PB at training. Nevertheless, it was fantastic to be back out there training with the squad again - I've really missed having these awesome athletes around!

One possible reason to account for the high rate of injury recurrence amongst distance runners

It's a shame to say that one of the single biggest risk factors for sustaining an overuse injury amongst endurance athletes is whether they have sustained the same (or similar) injury in the past. This suggests one of two things - either our athletes have some unidentified genetic predisposition to sustaining the same injury to a specific anatomical landmark, or that we in the medical and health professions are short-changing our clients by not addressing all of their clinical deficits resulting from their injury. Unfortunately, the latter appears more viable. Throughout my training as a physiotherapist, we were drilled to ensure that following any injury, a pre-requisite range-of-motion and level of strength had to be met prior to returning to their chosen sport. Whilst these guidelines are important, they do not encompass all of the specific areas that are compromised as a result of the initial injury. Consequently, it appears that we may be discharging patients too early.

One specific component of the injured athlete paradigm that is vastly gaining further exposure in the research literature is that of neuromotor coordination. Note that this is very different to 'strength.' In essence, 'strength' can be defined as the amount of force (typically measured in Newtons) that a muscle can generate by either shortening, remaining still, or lengthening. Strength is important, as it provides the foundations for two paradoxical components of fitness - both power and endurance. Both of these variables are simply derived from the equation: force over time - with the value of the denominator being far greater in the latter (endurance). Strength allows our bones and joints to move quickly, powerfully and/or for a long duration in whatever direction we desire. The muscles that are best suited for this role are those that are located more superficially (I like to call these the 'mirror' muscles, as these are the muscles that gym junkies like to spend a lot of time conditioning so that they look impressive when out on the tune); in scientific terms, these are classified as 'global' muscles. In essence, these muscles are mostly under our conscious control; hence we can chose when to activate them, along with controlling the amount of force which we choose to apply. Fundamentally, we condition these muscles by generically applying the '3 sets of 10 repetitions' principle in order to improve their force output (i.e. strength). 

Conversely, 'local' muscles are situated very close to our body's joints, and hence are not as easily seen as they are covered by our global system. These differ fundamentally from global muscles in that their primary role is not that of force output, it is merely to activate in a fast and coordinated manner in order to centrate and stabilise our joints so that our global muscles have a solid platform for which they can exert their force output from. Furthermore, they differ neurophysiologicaly in that they function below the level of our conscious control - in other words, they activate automatically in a feed forward manner in that we do not need to actually devote our attention towards. I am going to state this now (prior to elaborating further on a future post regarding the arguably flawed status quo of our therapeutic/corrective exercises) - local muscles do not respond to strength training principles of '3 sets of 10 repetitions.' This is why you will never see me prescribe internal and external rotation exercises with a thereband to clients with a rotator cuff injury, or 'clamshells' in order to 'activate' someone's gluteals.

Coming back to the original question - it is well established that our neuromuscular control is altered immediately post injury. The central nervous system adopts a compensatory strategy following an injury in attempt to off-load the injured structure, providing it with the best possible environment to allow it to heal. An example of this occurs when you sprain your ankle - without realising, you will rotate your entire lower extremity of the injured side outwards in order to reduce the amount of stress that would otherwise be applied to the outer ligaments of your ankle. Whilst this provides an extremely effective short term strategy, the body does not spontaneously default back to its original posture once the pain and swelling has subsided. As a result, your body is likely to adopt this posture into all of its normal activities of daily living. Running with an out-turned foot impaires stabilisation of the entire lower extremity, allowing the knee to cave inwards during midstance - which is a biomechanical cause of a vast array of common injuries including plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinopathy, and runner's knee to name just a few.

Nevertheless, it is important to consider that this is simply one factor that may contribute to your current running-related injury, and the relative weighting of this past history is going to differ vastly from client to client. Factors such as training errors, running technique, basic mobility and stability are all imperative variables to consider when attempting to determine the underlying causes of any running injury. As I commonly say to my patients, no two running injuries are ever the same, meaning that if I had 10 current clients with the clinical diagnosis of Achilles tendinopathy, I would have 10 very different treatment protocols based on the relative contributions of the above-mentioned variables that each client uniquely presents with. 

So next time your medical practitioner asks you 'what injuries have you experienced in the past,' hopefully you will better understand the significance of such information and how it allows them to tailor their treatment plan to your own unique presentation.

Thursday morning session - DNF

How soon is too soon? After being rendered bed ridden the past two days with a nasty stomach bug, I ambitiously (or stupiditly) decided to 'ease' back into running this morning with some one mile repeats along Manly Beach front with the Manly boys and girls. The warm-up run over Queenscliff headland from South Curl Curl sounded the first sirens, with my legs protesting every step of the climb. Luckily I arrived at our designated meeting point 10 minutes prior to kick-off - giving myself a 'much-deserved' recovery break. We started our first rep running down towards Manly, and I immediately got onto the back of Tom and hung on all the way down. I looked at my watch periodically throughout the effort, which continued to read a stubborn 3:12 min/km pace. Speed-wise, that felt about right, however effort-wise I was working much harder. That burning sensation that you get in your lungs that is generally reserved until the last few km's of a 10km race was present from about 600m in, and the legs turned to lead not long after. We completed the mile, and I was spent. After a 2 minute break, we set off for the second rep, but I lasted about 500m before deciding to call it quits. As most runners and endurance athletes know, this is never an easy decision - one where you have two voices in your head; one rationale and objective voice telling you the honest truth, the other screaming at you to 'harden up' and 'run it out.' Today, the former won the battle. Perhaps I was too ambitious today, after getting 'itchy feet' following 2 days of enforced rest. I will attempt an easy 40-50 minute run tomorrow (definitely no speed work), and hope to return to Centennial Park on Saturday morning with Sean Williams' squad for a 10-12 km threshold run. But as always, I will start listening to my body more and more.

Monday morning run

60 minutes of very easy recovery 'running.' Nothing too interesting to report - just day-dreaming whilst ticking the legs over. Felt better upon finishing compared to the first couple of steps, so the objective of today's run was achieved.

Sunday morning long run

Another Sunday, another 28km in the bank. Pretty ordinary day - overcast, strong easterly wind (i.e. just annoying, as there was no head wind/tail wind out and back variation - simply a side breeze the entire run), and not particularly cool either. Just the standard run to Warriewood Beach from South Curl Curl, returning to Manly before finishing at Curly. At least I was well fuelled following last night's Curry Night with 9 other Manly runners. Looking forward to running with the group again on Wednesday morning!

Saturday morning session - 1 x 4 miles, 1 x 2 miles

This was bloody tough. I don't know whether it was the wind, the small puddles left behind by the overnight rain, or simply me just becoming soft - but today felt harder than I had envisaged. The goal was to run 4 miles at my goal 10km pace (which is 3:18 min/km), followed by 2 miles again at the same pace. I feel like I failed, with an average pace of 3:20 min/km and 3:21 min/km respectively. Despite being a flat course, Passmore Reserve is not a fast loop - and again I will blame the canopy of trees covering the final 150m of the circuit. My GPS instaneous pace always drops a couple of seconds per km when passing underneath - well, that is my excuse anyway. Nevertheless, I have set a baseline, and will likely attempt to repeat the same session next Saturday, hoping to average 2 and 3 seconds per kilometre faster, respectively. The real test will come in a fortnight with the next race of the Sydney Striders 10km series at Lane Cove National Park - an undulating, yet surprisingly not so slow 10km road course. Still undecided about entering the 10km road race the following week down in Canberra for the Australian Running Festival. My coach Sean Williams believes that it is not a particularly fast course due to its winding nature. A weekend away down in the nation's capital could be fun though, and it would be great to cheer on my fellow squad members and Sudney Striders the following day for the half and full marathons.

Recipe: Homemade Granola

Granola served with natural yogurt and fresh fruit is the breakfast of champions! This has been a staple for me over the past few years, and makes getting out of bed early and running yourself into the ground all the more worthwhile.

Makes: 6 cups

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups oats
• 1 cup macadamia nuts (or Brazil nuts)
• 1/2 cup ground almonds
• 1/2 cup flaxseed
• 1 cup pepitas 
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup of sliced up medjool dates
• 1 large handful of coconut flakes
• 3 Tbps coconut oil
• 3 Tbps honey (or maple syrup)
• 3 tbs cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mix together in a large bowl all dry ingredients (i.e. everything except for the dates, coconut oil, honey and cinnamon)
2. Melt coconut oil with the honey and cinnamon in a smaller bowl in the microwave (30 seconds generally does the trick)
3. Add the melted coconut oil into the large bowl with the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly with both hands
4. Place the mixture onto a baking sheet on a tray, and place in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes, taking out halfway through to stir
5. Remove granola mix from the oven, and add meddjool dates once cooled
6. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks

Thursday morning session - 15 x 400m / 200m 'float'

It doesn't get any easier! This specific session is an old favourite of mine that I previously performed weekly leading up to my best ever half marathon back in 2011. I reintroduced it last week after a 4 year absence, and I can absolutely ensure you that it hurts just as much as I can ever remember. The aspect that draws me towards this session is that you can tweak the variables to specifically match your own personal objectives. The term 'float' can be ambiguous - and this particular week that term was somewhat an understatement. When performing the same session last week, I averaged 72 seconds for each 400m repeat, with an average split of 4'19 min/km pace for the 'floats.' On first observation, I was slightly disappointed with this morning's average of 73 seconds - however this was quickly put into perspective upon analysing my average 'float' pace of 4:13 min/km. Consequently, my average pace for the entire 9km was fractionally faster than last week, at 3:27 min/km. Furthermore, I proclaimed on Tuesday that summer had vanished, with an appreciable drop in humidity. My joy was short lived with the temperature gauge reading 22 degrees Celsius prior to warming up. A big thanks to Paul McClarnon who joined in with me this morning, and also had a solid session himself. An easy 40 minute recovery run on the cards for this afternoon - the planned route from Sydney Univerity to Cremorne (pretty dull, especially the part where I run over the Sydney Harbour Bridge), followed by a well deserved rest day tomorrow.

Wednesday medium long run

I slept in this morning until 6:40am, meaning that when I left the house I was treated to the most amazing sunrise as I descended the driveway and overlooked South Curl Curl Beach. I generally feel sore and sorry for myself on Wednesday morning, especially following Tuesday's double run. Today was no different, noticing the usual tightness in the right hamstring and right peroneals upon first strides. Nevertheless, these niggles 'warmed up' (which, by the way, is a good sign when differentiating between general aches and pains vs. a proper injury as a runner) and I ran a steady 18km to the end of North ahead and return. Didn't actually see the normal group of guys that I run with on Wednesday morning, so I'm glad that I did not set the alarm an hour earlier as I might have ended up running solo anyway. The goal with today is to purely get some miles into my legs, but  ore importantly to promote some degree of recovery in preparation for tomorrow morning's speed session.

Tuesday morning session - 7 x 1000m

World record conditions today with a sudden, but pleasantly welcome drop in humidity. Easter is definitely in the air! I have always maintained that the Autumn months are the best time of year in Sydney - as mentioned, the stickiness from the humidity evaporates (metaphorically), the afternoon north-easterly sea breeze disappears (leaving the ocean smooth all day long), the surf remains warm (the ocean temperature generally lags about 2-3 months behind the air temperature), and the crowds disappear. The only issue is the reduction in daylight - most evident if you are an early morning riser, with an official sunrise delivering only minutes before 7am.

Another solo session for myself this morning at my new stomping ground, Passmore Oval. Since identifying my limitations, I have made a concerted effort to improve my aerobic power and speed endurance. The session this morning was 7 x 1000m with a 1:15 minute float between efforts. The goal was to hold 3:10 min/km pace (5km pace), which I struggled to do when performing the same session last week. Thankfully, today was much more pleasant, as I recorded the following splits - 3:07, 3:09, 3:08, 3:06, 3:06, 3:09, and 3:05 - with the floats all under 4:30 min/km pace. I actually contemplated completing an eighth repetition, but stuck to my guns of only increasing one variable per week - this week being pace.

I will discuss with my coach Sean Williams on how I best progress this session for next week. Pace wise, I am more than happy, and will unlikely increase this variable. I would be interested in perhaps reducing the rest period by 15 seconds, or alternatively performing an eighth repetition.

I will attempt to get out for an easy 40 minute recover run this afternoon, most likely out to Shelley Beach from South Curl Curl and return. In between now and then, I am honoured and humbled to be heading over to the east side to assess and treat the legendary Keith Bateman and his wife Heidi today! For this of you who don't know, Keith is the world record holder for every distance from 1500m to 10 000m for his age group. On top of this, more importantly, he is a top bloke, and is always willing to help out others! I hope that I can get him and Heidi back running ASAP so they can have a crack at lowering their already impressive world records.

Given that it was such a beautiful morning, I tested out my photography skills by capturing some glimpses of the secret training ground.

Monday morning run - about as entertaining as yesterday's season opening Australian F1 Grand Prix

Monday morning - the worst time of the week, as it is the longest time possible to the forthcoming weekend. This is also compounded by backing up from yesterday's long run and a solid session on Saturday. Nevertheless, the goal on Monday is to finish the run feeling better than when I started. In other words, it's purely a recovery run. I have learnt the hard way over the past few years as to how 'easy' the recovery run should be. In fact, to use the term 'run' is a massive overstatement. 60 minutes of shuffling, rarely breaking sub-5 minute km's, seems to work wonders in terms of promoting recovery from the weekend's hard work, leaving me ready to attack the track on Tuesday morning for some hard 1000m intervals. It's a day where you have to leave your ego behind and simply trot - not worrying when an elderly gentlemen runs past and drops you whilst running along a beautiful sunrise at Manly Beach. As the title suggests, a pretty boring run, but nonetheless an important session from a recovery perspective.

Sunday long run

The traditional Sunday long run. I was left to run this solo today, after enjoying the company of the local Manly boys over the past month. Nothing too exciting to report - simply ran 28km from Manly to Warriewood Beach and return. Had a nice tail wind on the way down, but the ever increasing southerly wind made for an unpleasant return 14km. Oh well, I will take a head wind over the humidity that we have endured this past summer any day. In terms of pace, I actually like to leave the GPS at home and run purely on feel. Nevertheless, I would have averaged roughly 4:05-4:10 min/km. Pulled up a bit tired following a good solid week of training, which focused heavily on optimising my aerobic strength and speed endurance - as I want to condition myself to the demands of running sub-33 minute pace for 10km. Easy day planned for tomorrow (Monday), followed by a return to 1000m repeats nice and early on Tuesday morning. Enjoy the weekend!

Why do I insist on making sure people can touch their toes?

As a number of my client's will attest to, I am always adamant on ensuring that people can touch their toes from a standing position. "What has this got to do with my sore knee" is a common question I get asked when exposing this fundamental limitation in one's movement pattern repertoire. You see, our current knowledge of how the body works is growing exponentially. It is now widely acknowledged, thanks to the ground breaking work of pioneers in the field such as Gray Cook and Lee Burton, that the brain and the central nervous system does not tend to activate individual muscles in isolation when performing a designated movement - this would be simply inefficient and require an expansive amount of work and energy. Rather, the brain relies on movement patterns (or patterns of movement if you like). These movement patterns are developed on a hierarchical model, and are actually learnt through growth and development. As a newborn, you are lying supine. One of the first movements that your perform is cervical spine flexion and rotation (i.e. lifting your head up off the floor and looking left or right). This movement pattern then evolves into rolling left to right, as you learn to bring your arm across your body to faciltate this movement. Next, you are on your stomach - you prop up onto bent elbows and learn how to creep. This then becomes crawling. Before you know it, you can sit. Standing is the next progression. This forms the building blocks for walking, which progresses to running, etc. This is a drastic oversimplification of neurodevelopmental kinesiology - but the overarching theme here is that you need to develop one movement pattern to a proficient standard prior to progressing to the next milestone. Have you ever seen someone progress from sitting to walking bypassing standing in the process?

What does this all have to do with touching your toes??? The most common explanation I get from clients who cannot touch their toes is that their hamstrings are 'tight' and they need to stretch more. Whilst this can be true for a small minority of people, anecdotally, I find that the issue is not that of a lack of muscle length or flexibility - it's simply a 'software' issue where the client is not reflexively (i.e. automatically) engaging their core in a feed-forward manner. This causes the brain and central nervous system to adopt a compensatory strategy to ensure equilibrium when one attempts to touch their toes from standing in order to prevent them face planting into the ground. A common strategy that is employed is to activate the hamstring and calf musculature to act as 'brakes' to prevent this from occurring. The way to address this 'dysfunctional' movement pattern is remarkably simple (I will post a common strategy very soon). In essence, the client is not engaging their core quick enough (note that it is not a lack of core 'strength' - which is one of the most common myths out their today, witnessed by the number of people who implement core 'strengthening' into their exercise routine; rather it is simply a timing and coordination issue - which we refere to as 'motor control.' No amount of planks, sit-ups, crunches, etc. will get your core muscles to engage in an anticipatory manner - which is the essence of their functional role).

Now, if we reconsider the above mentioned concept of a neurodevelopmental hierarchy, the client has a core 'timing' issue whilst standing. Remember that standing forms the building blocks to walking, which is imperative prior to running and other higher level activities. Put simply, if your core is not engaging properly with both feet statically on the ground in standing, there is no way in hell it will be working properly when running - which is much higher up the movement pattern chain thanks to its dynamic alternating single-leg support nature with a plyometric flight phase between.

Take home message here: touching your toes in standing is essential for a normal, healthy and functional movement pattern repertoire. Rarely is stretching the answer (in fact, I would controversy say that stretching will likely cause you far greater harm than not stretching in this situation) - fixing the 'software' issue of a mis-firing core is the first step, prior to reintegrating this function back into your more complicated movement patterns higher up the movement tree.

Saturday session - 3 x 2 miles

I have temporarily reverted back to the dark ages of the imperial system! The goal of this morning's run was to simulate 10km race pace over 3 intervals with a small recovery jog in between. I averaged 3:17, 3:16 and 3:22 min/km for the 3 sets - all with 4:30 recovery run of 2 minutes between. Although it looks as if I hit the wall in the last repetition (which I no doubt did to some degree), I am going to debate the accuracy of the Garmin, as the complete session was carried out on my new stomping ground at Passmore Oval, which is a 650m concrete path. My general maths knowledge would suggest that each 2 mile repetition (3.2km) should take me just shy of 5 laps. This was spot on for the first two repetitions, however, I ended up running about 50-75m into a 6th lap for my last repetition. Nevertheless, it was a great and tough session, and one that I look forward to repeating perhaps next Saturday or the following week. I was joined by Jamie Stewart for my cool down, who had just run a PB of 17:02 at ParkRun, and was just finishing off his tenth one minute effort as set by his coach Gary Horward. Long run tomorrow - tossing up whether to drive to Centennial Park and run with Sean Williams' squad, or try and regroup who is currently here in the Manly group for another run around the recently opened (and reportedly $11 million) Narrabeen Lake trail. Until then, I will enjoy my coffee!

Friday - day of rest

It's kind of ironic that I start my blog on a rest day. Previous to this year, 'rest' was a foreign word to me. I knew physiologically that the concept of rest was imperative for the adaptations induced by my training to come to fruitation, but as mentioned in my previous post, running is like a drug and can be addictive. Nevertheless, 2015 has been a year of maturity for myself, and I now embrace my Friday's. I used to just go out and run an easy 30-40 minutes each Friday morning, but I would frequently notice that I would turn up to training on Saturday morning feeling stale. Even the Kenyans, the greatest distance runners on the planet, train six days per week. Back when I was kayaking, Sunday was my rest day. But for some reason, a lot of runners feel the implusion to run 7 days per week. Again, this is where you need to know your body and when to listen to it. I know plenty out there who respond optimally to training each and every day, whilst others would simply overtrain performing this schedule. In terms of performance, it important to remember it is dictated by two very important variables - training and recovery. The latter is what most tend to ignore. It is essential to acknowledge that influences external to running can signficantly compromise the recovery process. Factors such as family, work-life, financial stresses can all take their toll on your overall level of performance. Therefore, it is important when designing a training schedule to factor in these variables, to ensure that you do not tread down the dreaded path of overtraining. 

Anyway, back to Friday's recovery day. The goal today is to rest the legs following a tough week of training (which included a 10km race), especially on the back of yesterday mornings session - which consisted of 15 x 400m with a 200m float recovery between intervals. I have recently come to the realisation that an area that I could really improve is my actual speed endurance and aerobic power (as running coach Jack Daniels would state). As a result, I actually didn't push the 400m intervals to an all out effort, averaging between 68-72 seconds, but actually didn't slow down too much in my 200m floats, running around 4:10-4:20 min/km pace. This may become a staple session over the next month, as I am adamant on breaking the elusive 33 minute barrier for 10km. 

Tomorrow morning I have planned a 10km race pace specific session of 3 x 2 miles (3.2km) at 3:18 min/km pace, with 2 minutes floating in between sets. I plan to complete this at Passmore Oval, Manly Vale, which has a nice uninterrupted 650m asphalt path. Apart from a 100m stretch which has a slight canopy temporarily blocking the GPS signal, I find this course mentally challenging, but great nonetheless. I will post an update tomorrow upon completion of the session.

Recipe: Ethiopian Pancakes

This is one of my all time favourite recipes, one that requires slightly more time investment than a conventional weekday breakfast, but absolutely worth every second if you have the time. If you cannot get access to teff flour, you can simply substitute with buckwheat flour.

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup teff flour
• 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
• 2 Tbps protein powder (or 2 eggs)
• 1/2 tbs ground cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1/2 large banana
• 1/2 cup water

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients into a food processor
2. Prepare an oiled pan over medium heat
3. Scoop 1/2 cup of mixture per pancake
4. Flip pancakes when bubbles begin to emerge (generally around 90-120 seconds)
5. Serve with extra cinnamon sprinkled on top, remain 1/2 banana, 1/2 mango, 4-5 Tbps of natural or Greek yogurt, and a handful of frozen blueberries

Hello, welcome to my blog

Thank-you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read through my blog. For those who do not know me personally, I am 28 year old physiotherapist and PhD student who is obsessed with running and cooking. I have decided to create this blog to share my thoughts and knowledge primarily in these former areas, but I also anticipate it will evolve into some form of running diary and collection of recipes.

Physiotherapy

As I approached my fourth year as a graduated physiotherapist, I decided to finally bite the bullet and start my own business. This was definitely not a decision that was taken lightly, and took months of preparation and planning to get the logistics and business model to eventuate. As a passionate distance runner, I would safely say that my specific area of expertise is the treatment and rehabilitation of running (and cycling) related overuse injuries. I suppose that one of my motives behind starting this blog is to educate fellow endurance athletes and competitors out there regarding the many misconceptions and 'wife's tales' surrounding the treatment of running-related injuries. Firstly, it is essential to understand that overuse injuries are a completely different 'kettle of fish' to traumatic injuries. The latter can almost follow a 'recipe-like' treatment protocol based on the specific structure that is damaged. The former, however, needs to be tailor-made to the individual, and needs a lot more investigative work conducted in order to identify and address the fundamental cause that is driving the individual's pain. In other words, for overuse injuries, you must treat the person, not the structural diagnosis. I like to think of the actual painful area as the victim - the art of treating a running-related injury is to identify the culprit(s). This can often involve treating an area of the body that does not initially seem related to specific painful area. But it is important to consider that the human body as a whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. I plan to go into much greater depth, and highlight specific examples as the blog evolves to highlight these fundamental concepts. Although not essential, I still believe that it is of great importance to visit a medical or health practitioner that actually runs themselves to assist you in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of running-related injury. As runners, we have a very different and unique mindset - we dread the word 'rest,' and far too often do I see this as a completely unnecessary prescription to address a running-related injury. Of course the pain is going to subseed if you cease the activity that is driving your symptoms - however, chances are it will simply return upon recommencement, as the underlying cause has not been addressed. Lastly, no two running injuries are ever the same. For example, I could see 10 patients on a single day all presenting with left-sided ITB pain. The status quo would be to rest from running, prescribe hip flexor stretches, foam roll the ITB (do not get me started on these two methods...), and 'strengthen' the glutes. This in my opinion is completely lazy, and does not even consider the many variable factors that each individual client may uniquely present with. I would like to think that each of these 10 patients had their own individual treatment plan, customised to their specific needs, goals, and orientated towards identifying and exposing the culprit.

Research

I got my first taste of research back in 2011 whilst completing my Honours year during my undergraduate physiotherapy degree. Despite the stigma attached with research put forward by my fellow students in my cohort, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the process. Further to this, it has actually opened the door to many great opportunities in my short career thus far. This has inspired me to commence a PhD in the area of clinical neurosciences at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Neuroscience Research Australia. Specifically, I will be focusing on the area of proprioception - which is essentially body position sense. I like to think of proprioception as the body's true sixth sense. It is something that we all take for granted - until of course we lose it. One of the single biggest risk factors for sustaining an injury in the future is a past history of the same injury. This highlights a current limitation in rehabilitative medicine, as this statistic suggests that we are not addressing all of the clinical deficits that present as a result of the initial injury. We address the obvious and measurable issues, such as pain, swelling, range-of-motion, and strength. However, the problem here lies in the fact that we first of all do not completely understand the physiology behind proprioception, and consequently do not know how to assess and measure it clinically. My research will hopefully contribute towards both of these mutually exclusive factors.

Running

I began running sporadically throughout my teenage years, primarily as a means of cross training to complement my main sport of sprint kayaking. It wasn't until 2010 that I really discovered my true passion for running, and entered my first race - the Newcastle Half Marathon. Since that race, running has become like a drug - it's addictive and I can't get enough of it. Recently, I switched my focus towards the shorter distances of 5km and 10km, and under the watchful eye of 'super coach' Sean Williams, have made some steady progress over the past 6 months or so. I plan to use this blog as a training diary to outline my weekly sessions, upcoming races, friendly rivalries, and to essentially embrace the beautiful art of distance running.

Recipes

2010 was the turning point for me in regards to diet, and it's broad reaching implications on all facets of my life. Prior to my expedition to the Himalayas, my daily food intake was unfortunately similar to that of a typical Westernised diet, consisting of large portions of processed foods, with very little room for fresh produce. Further to this, my cooking skills went as far as burnt toast. Having suffered through years of chronic health problems which ultimately led to my premature retirement from sprint kayaking, the single biggest factor towards my return to health and happiness was cleaning up the food that entered my mouth. This, coupled with my untapped natural talent in the kitchen, resulted in a sudden increase in energy levels, a massive drop in my running times, and even a significant improvement in my grades at university. I started recovering better, allowing myself to back up and train harder - ultimately getting fitter in the process. My attention and focus to detail was second to none, and my lust for life had returned - leaving me rejuvenated. I would like to share some of my favourite recipes on this blog that have become staples in my kitchen. Having done some travelling around the world, I have stolen a lot of influences from some exotic cuisines, namely Indian, Lebanese, and Ethiopian (the latter is amazing, and is slowly gaining some traction in the Western world). I don't prescribe to any fad diets (sorry to all you Paleo, gluten-free, vegan champions out there), as I feel that eliminating fundamental food groups from one's diet without medical advise is irresponsible and dangerous (trust me, I've been there and tried it)! I live by the philosophy of one of my previous bosses would have put, 'everything in moderation, including moderation itself.'

In Summary...

Wow, that became very long-winded. I guess my primary objectives for this blog are to share my knowledge in the hope that it can genuinely help others, especially pertaining to the field of overuse injuries and running. I am always on the quest to learn more, and live by the belief that the day that I stop learning will be the day that I retire. The true pioneers of all fields are also the most humble people, and truly embrace the journey of lifelong learning.