The back is sorta kinda improving each day. After the easy 10k yesterday morning I went for a pretty serious bit of massage last night at a clinic (K's in Ebisu) that treats some very good athletes, including Mara Yamauchi, who came second in the Sapporo half marathon behind Mizuki Noguchi on the weekend (and ahead of 6th placed Catherine Ndereba). I digress. The masseur also deigned that I was in need of getting a few needles jabbed in me, so I came to have my first encounter with acupuncture. It wasn't bad, but I cannot proclaim it to be a miracle cure either. Not for whatever I've got, anyway. I was in great fear of the massage, not for any pain I might feel, though there was some of that, but for the fact that I might find myself thinking that this is something I need a lot more of. I had good reason to hold that fear. Damn it was good. But at $50 a pop, I just can't do it very often. I dunno, maybe I should aim to go once a month or something. Do a night a month at a host club in Kabukicho to raise the readies.
Tonight, track night, I skipped track and had a good run in Yoyogi Park with Colin. One hour and fifteen minutes of nice easy/steady pace in pretty high humidity and a few squalls. Under the circumstances I think it is a good outcome. And rest assured, the back is getting plenty of stretching.
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About Me
- Stephen Lacey
- Born in 1963 under a camphor laurel tree beside Bilambil Creek, I now live in Tokyo with my Japanese wife and three sons. I started running in 2002 and my addictive personality soon clasped this foolish pastime to its bosom. I am also an enthusiastic amateur brewer and have won a few competitive home brewing awards in my time. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2015, today I can no longer run, and my blog posts are more likely to concern the waxing and waning of my condition.
6 comments:
Am I alone in thinking acupuncture is a total scam? There are no "meridians" running across our bodies.
And what if it does get rid of pain - it quite plainly can't address the underlying biomechanical issue underlying the pain. If acupuncture could allow you to put your hand over a flame and not feel a thing it wouldn't necessarily be doing you any good.
I think acupuncture is getting an easy ride. A few people get a placebo effect after trying it, the rest, like you, me (yes, even I got sucked in) and my father waste ¥5,000 and hobble out of the treatment room.
I tried acupuncture for the first time a few weeks back and it did seem to provide some relief to my ongoing adductor thing. Could be the placebo effect as oldsprinter suggests. The jury is still out on this one I think.
oldsprinter, I am quite sure you are not the only one. I remain agnostic towards it. As I said, I certainly didn't receive any benefit that I would put down directly to the acupuncture. I should clarify that it was only a small part of the treatment and added 1000 yen to the price. Your comment about it getting an easy ride is probably true. I'd like to look more deeply into what is known about it from evidence-based approach.
I had about half a dozen accupuncture sessions on my hammy, I thought it was worth a shot because the guy I went to bulk bills (he's a GP).
The accupuncture didn't seem to help, though on a couple of occasions I managed to catch some much needed sleep while lying there :-)
It's strange that you can believe you can make money from being a "host" and can't be cured by accupunture!
Although they are both old professions, so to speak,my money would be on accupuncture.
Hosting gets more of an "easy ride"
if you know what I mean ;)
I named my GSX after Mizuki Noguchi!
Yes Steve, I've calmed down a bit since the epiphany. Regarding the 'work' days (83%)... my pace now at this HR (139) is only 5:35-5:45/km which feels 'firm' but not that hard. I'm looking forward to those, as it's a more natural pace for me than 6:00 + /km.
Another anecdote - re the 140-160 per week level. There is a runner in our club who wants to break 3 for the marathon - many attempts but hasn't done it yet. In one prep, he ran 150km weeks but still blew up - yet ran sub-80 for a half marathon. I think the problem was he ran too fast in training to get the adaptation Hadd talks about.
Byu the way, I would have thought the host club would offer to pay you to stay away?
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