The Trails and Trials of Staff

This is effectively a tale of two videos, five minutes apart.

Staff injured his knee roughly four weeks ago to the extent that he damaged his patella, medial ligaments and a partial tear/stretch of his ACL. All in all he done a right number on himself! (not as severe as it sounds! many levels to an injury!)

As you can imagine with what was only 7/8 weeks to the start of our event, this was not in the planning!

What you will will find with Staff is that he has a very astute business mind, is very driven, has a knack for detail and when you have a discussion with him, he is always keen to find the best in people to drive them to their best efforts. He has taken those traits since his injury and put them into sorting out his recovery via specific physiotherapy, hired a personal trainer and focussed on his rehab.

As a fitness professional myself and having quite a few injuries in the past I know one of the key factors when coming back to fitness is to know when to push and when to take a step back to let the body rest. I have made many a mistake with coming back too quickly and setting myself back. Coming back from my  ACL injury I made this very mistake and tore my cartilage for the third time!

In the week leading up to the following videos, Staff took himself out on a 15 mile run. He is in normal circumstances, able to pull this off with hardly any effort, with no side effects.
This time it has turned out to be a case of too much too soon.
With wanting to get himself ready for what was planned to be a 24 mile route this past Saturday (4th August), the 15 mile (Tuesday) stretch was just a tad too much to recover by the Saturday.

You find that when people are conscious of an existing or previous injury that they will change the way that they move in order to compensate for it. This leads to the body not moving correctly, placing stress onto parts of the body on or around the "injury" site that can ultimately lead to more problems. The best thing to do is to move in the same way you have always done to allow the muscles to have the same stretch response as to not hinder any movement patterns.

Runners after a knee complaint tend to place a lot more pressure through the injured knee when striking the ground which would then increase the forces going through the Tibia, Patella tendon (patella-tibia). The cause is generally from a change in the foot strike.

We could all tell from his body language that he was a bit gutted. Having spoken to him later that day, knowing that this is a slight set back, he is fully determined to get himself right come the start of the race.

Being his running partner I want him to be fit and ready to complete this 2012 Transalpine journey with me. Knowing the man - I am more than confident he will be there!

Staff's Injury - Part 1

Staff's Injury - Part 2

Fairlands Valley 50km Challenge and other such things...

I have neglected my blogging of late reasons being the past couple of months have been in essence pretty redundant in terms of having anything worth while saying!

Looking over the past few weeks it has been a mixed bag for us all in terms of training, commitment and injuries.

I'll start with the positive achievements of Dave and JK.
July 15th was the day of our planned 50km challenge around the Hertfordshire area of the UK. JK was battling with some form of man flu and to his credit he completed in excess of the 30 mile course. Not wanting to blame anyone (Dave), but we took a wrong turn on our map and ended up doing an extra two 3 miles...not what you want on a 50km run!

It continues to amaze me how JK and Dave have the mental discipline to keep going on our runs regardless of how much discomfort and pain they may be in. I have tried to learn from this since the start of our training together back in February this year.............I am not there yet and this race put things back into focus.

We were going around the course comfortably and thought we were at the 18 mile mark come our next check point. I was feeling good, happy that I had gotten this far as I had just come back from a hamstring injury. I had set myself a minimum target of 18-20 miles for this run to get me back into the swing of things you see.

What we found at the check point was that it was in fact only mile 12.....doh!
I am not kidding you - my whole positive mentality just evaporated in an instant. Legs started to ache, back was tight, pains down both legs...... what on earth was going on!

JK had a "pep" talk with me the week after where he said you could tell by the look on my face that I was done.

At the 17 mile check point I was all but spent. Following that check point I couldn't run as the pains in my legs were very uncomfortable and didn't have it in me to push through that to pick my legs up. In the end I frog marched to the 20 mile check point where I ended my race.

Recently I have started to pick up the training that I am doing on my own in an effort to focus my mind to get me in the best shape I can going into the event. I am honest enough to say that I am some way off where I thought I would be at this stage.
What I have found helpful is going to a local running club of a Tuesday night where the goal is purely about interval training. The effort level involved in the group JK and I run in is intense! the latest session pushed me all the way to my limits. I am definitely feeling the benefits within my body and this has pushed up both my confidence and motivation leading up to the Transalpine....in 25 days time!!!!


You may have noticed that I have only mentioned the three of us for this event, where before there has always been the four of us.

Staff is continuing to recover from a knee injury he sustained on his birthday at the end of June. My next blog post will give you an update as to what is going on with his hopes of being fit enough to be at this years Transalpine run.

Heart Research Charity drive - Nick

Hello!! (I hope you can make the time to read this AND PASS THIS ON TO FRIENDS, FAMILY AND AROUND YOUR PLACES OF WORK)

As you may know by now due to my blog, facebook and twitter (@PTNickyC) postings that myself and a few friends are competing in an event this year which will take us 208 miles through the alps of Germany, Austria and Italy.......oh and we're running it!! 

It's called the Transalpine event http://www.transalpine-run.com/alps_cross_start.htm , staged over 8 days, completing in essence a marathon each day........I bet you're thinking that sounds fun right?!! haha

We're down to the nuts and bolts of our preparation now as we're down to the last 25 days until the start of this mammoth task.

We weren't originally going to raise funds for chairty as we're doing this event entirey for our own "fun", yet it became apparent quite quickly that the one thing people kept asking us other than 'are you mad?' was in fact 'who are you rising money for?'
Aside from this charity page that I have set up, we also have one set up to sponsor the BHF (British Heart Foundation). So you may be thinking why is it that I have choosen Heart Research UK as well?

Here's my answer :-)
The people that know me well, know that I lost my Dad back in 2005. Reason being due to heart failure (cardiomyopathy).

During his care he had what is know as an LVAD (left ventricluar assist device) implanted into his body. This is a machine that is inserted internally allowing the blood flow that normally goes through your heart to be rerouted to go through the LVAD. The aim of this machine is to allow the heart to rest and possibly start to show signs of recovery within the affected areas of the heart. 

If you have never seen this device attached to a person you don't quite get the full scope of what it is and the impact it has on a persons life, albeit trying to prolong it. The machines power source comes from either a machine you plug into the mains at home or by battery packs you're to wear.

In order to do this a drive line had to come from the LVAD and out through the abdominal wall of my Dad. It's a very invasive piece of kit to have but on the other side of the coin it is a genius piece of engineering.

The LVAD gave me the opportunity to spend precious moments with my Dad that I will always remember and be grateful for.

He showed immense strength of mind, body and character when he was going through his treatment, which is something I can only hope to emmulate come September 1st-8th during my event.

This continuing research will give other people and their families in the situation that Dad and my family were in, the opportunity to not only prolong their lives in the short term but make a full recovery.

Sadly I can't have this for my Dad but hold comfort in knowing that it could be possible for others.

If you are gracious enough to donate to this cause I would be truely thankful.

This has already been an emotionally and physically tough journey that I have embarked on. I have been a mess at times through this training but if my efforts and your generosity can help someone then it is all worth it in the end. 

 

Nick    http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NickCollinsHRUK

xx

Below I have added what any money raised from this would be going to.

Harefield Heart Science Centre

Dr Paul Barton, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London

 

Heart failure recovery

The research team at Harefield Hospital has developed a new treatment whereby patients on LVAD support also received heart failure therapy drugs – drugs that would normally not be given at this stage of the disease. This has led them to find that with the right drug combination certain groups of patients actually get better. Over two-thirds of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy who were enrolled into the programme responded well to the therapy. Over time their hearts started to work well again and following treatment it was possible to remove the LVAD and for them to return to normal life.

 

Little is known about how recovery of the heart occurs in these patients. In order to understand more, the team has been studying samples taken from the heart when the LVAD is implanted and other samples taken after treatment. They found a number of changes in gene activity which may contribute to the recovery process. However, a key question which remains is why certain patients respond well to treatment while others, with the same signs and symptoms, do not and still need a transplant. This project aims to directly address this question by using state-of-the-art gene expression analysis tools to look for differences in the molecular make up of the hearts of patients in these two groups. It is thought that identifying such differences will lead to a better understanding of heart failure. This will pave the way for tests to determine which patients are likely to recover and should therefore be considered for these pumps earlier.  Also, the findings may contribute to the development of future drug treatments to reverse heart failure

Please view my donation page to assist the ongoing research into heart failure through Heart Research UK

My page: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NickCollinsHRUK