Things are looking up (maybe)

I'm being cautiously optimistic. I haven't been to physical therapy in a week (scheduling problems) and I won't be for another four days. However, in the last week, my back has gotten progressively better, especially since receiving The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook from Amazon. I'm generally skeptical about this kind of stuff, but I've been in pain for so long that I figured trying what the book said couldn't make things any worse. Plus, my physical therapist has mentioned trigger points. Anyway, I'm not pain-free yet, but I'm not in constant pain, either. I swam on Tuesday and last night I ran (slowly) on the treadmill.

Who would have thought that I'd become a believer in things like Kineseo tape and trigger points?

Ok, so I thought I'd be a better blogger

I just never seem to get around to posting much apart from race reports, so now I'm back, but there's not that much to report...

I've been training rather sporadically since Eilat. I'd been suffering from back pain, even before Eilat, since about October, but I'd managed to keep training through it. After Eilat, I decided to take some time off to rest my back. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. The more I rested, the more my back hurt. It finally got painful enough for me to go to a doctor, who send me to physical therapy. That's pretty much where I'm at now, though I am trying to do a long ride once a week and I've started swimming and running a bit.

The security situation being what it is here, team workouts have been canceled (under the orders of the Israeli Home Front Command). I've been running on my own (at home on my treadmill) and swimming and cycling with a friend. Exactly a week before the military action began in Gaza, we did a 90-kilometer ride to Be'eri and back. I wouldn't go anywhere near there, now, as that route takes us right past quite a few of the places where Kassam and Grad rockets have been falling. This past Saturday, we rode up to Kiryat Gat and back, thinking it would be safer than riding towards Beer Sheva. Beer Sheva was quiet that day, but a Grad rocket fell in Kiryat Gat a couple of hours after we'd been there.

So training in the midst of a military conflict has had it's challenges (as has life in general -- my kids and I have all been out of school for over a week and we have no idea when we'll be going back). I have no interest in getting into a political discussion here -- there are far better places for that -- so I'll leave it at that, hoping that life will get back to normal soon for all the people in this area.