Lisa came down tonight to give us a guaranteed-pain-free massage. Very relaxing, but oddly, somewhat lacking. When you’re used to “pain + gain” deep massage, the common (or garden) Swedish massage, aimed purely at comfort is just dull.

The benefit is still there, blood flow to the muscles is stimulated, fat deposits (what little there is left) are jiggled and made more accessible, and the body is quietly primed for action – but it’s just not the same without the demonic “oh! what have I found here?” as Lisa discovers and then mercilessly attacks knots and other muscular oddities.

But hey, I can’t complain, I’m too relaxed

In other news, I spoke to Guy from the Portsmouth evening newspaper today. Guy’s running the Marathon in a rhino suit, and is also writing a piece about other Portsmouth runners, so we’ll hopefully be meeting a photographer tomorrow and thus get the MSRC a mention in the local paper. Raising awareness of the MSRC is as important as direct fundraising, so this is fantastic news.

This was to be the last session before the marathon, and with two weeks before the big day there was still time for any bruising to heal, so Lisa was kind enough to really get stuck into my muscles with a deep pressure-point workout.

I know I mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying it again; this is not like a Swedish massage, this is like mild torture, the kind which a movie bad-guy with a conscience would use on the hero in order to prove that their pain-giver really does have the potential to inflict proper pain, thereby forcing the hero to tell all, without actually causing them too much damage so that they can still save the day at the end of the movie. It’s the kind of thing that makes you squirm to watch.

We had a nice curry afterwards, and I (honestly) accidentally ordered a hot one for Lisa. HA HA HA HA HA HA.

Lisa the physio is around later too – so I have to do lots of stretching today to help keep the pain down tonight!

Extra! A big thanks to everyone who’s sponsored us so far – we’ve just broken the £1000 barrier! If we weren’t in training for a marathon this would be worth cracking open a bottle of fizz… we’ll have a drink to your health in late April.

Circuits first, then the run immediately after. Most enjoyable. This evening we have Lisa the physio popping around too, so it’s a full day.

Lisa the Fizz has now been and as a result I’m considering inverting the colour scheme for this page so that normal training days show up in green and physio days show up in red – red for warning, red for danger.

Sports therapy hurts! Some say it’s good pain; I say it’s [a] just pain. In this case the justification is a long forecast bet that I can avoid more pain in future by having it in little bits now. It seems I’ve not fully imparted the “little bits” part of that message to Lisa yet.

The main outcome, apart from the pain & resulting benefits, is a few extra stretches that we should be doing post exercise in order to keep the muscles supple. What surprised me most was the back stretches which involve what I’d have thought would be a back compression, but which apparently stretch it – I’ll give a more full report after the next circuit class when I’ve had a chance to try them out properly.

It’s now 12 hours later and my calf muscles are sore in places where I hadn’t even noticed they were getting stiff. Pain-of-the-Day award goes to my Iliotibial Bands (ITB’s) (they’re kind of on the outside edge of your thighs and go up through your pelvis). A brief search on the net suggests that “Stripping the ITB” is one of the more painful things that a sports therapist can do. I can confirm that it was impossible to remain still on the couch during this procedure. I can also confirm that the rest of the stuff hurts like hell too.

Now; I’m doing all this running, which hurts, then paying to have deep physical pain inflicted on me, and all I ask of you is a little sponsorship to help other people. I think you’re getting the good side of the deal.

Also, this week sees the start of a revised schedule where I’ll be dropping all but Sunday boxing so I can fit in an extra night for running – this will still leave me enough time for circuit training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.