The Striding Report - Penny Lane Striders

page 12
The Striding report
PLS Sick Notes - Who’s got the best excuse? by C Puccini
When life chucks a hand grenade at your best laid training plans, what do you do? Send your pictures to
your favourite magazine to see who’s got the best scar, of course. Readers, I know what you’re thinking.
This time she’s gone too far, this is truly in bad taste. Well, you should have seen the ones I left out…
Michelle Kelly
My torn cartilage is a regular occurence, it
seems in 'mature runners' (sorry Jackie).
To name but a few of us, this happened to
Physio Dave (who gives great advice and
support if it happens to you), Frank Martin,
Sam Darby, Chris Carson, and me.
Oh yes and Simone's Dad (after he ran 2
Marathons in April). The injury isn’t too
painful but you cannot run properly until you
have op (and depending on severity of the
tear of your cartilage, the op varies) and the
recovery after op is anything between a few
days to a few weeks.
To finish, I am on the mend and l look
forward to returning in a few weeks/months
to see all the great guys and girls in PLS
that I miss so much, never mind the
running/hard efforts!
Tarja Kinnunen
Sometimes life comes on the way of racing;
three weeks prior to my priority race of the
year -Ironman Regensburg- I was
diagnosed with detached retina which
required emergency surgery with post-op
recovery involving two weeks of “posturing”
i.e. lying down on my left side. I was
allowed to be up for only 10 min every hour
when awake. Six months of focussed
training ended up lying down on the
sofa...No Ironman, no European Long
Course Champs. Lesson to learn; no
matter how well you prepare, sometimes
things are totally out of your control. All you
can do is adapt and look forward to a new
year and new races!