Those of you who read Damien's parkrun post every Saturday will be aware that I was diagnosed with a hernia in February. I was told that it wasn't linked with running and the type I had (inguinal) is not uncommon among 'older' men. It was only occasionally painful but often uncomfortable, so initially I didn't feel able to run. As well as being frustrating, this resulted in me putting on a bit of weight - not a good thing for someone with type 2 diabetes, and my blood sugar level also went up slightly. I was referred for surgery but there was no clear timescale, so in the end my GP agreed to write asking for me to be dealt with more urgently.
My hernia repair took place on 27 September and I was discharged that evening - all went according to plan (apart from needing to have a catheter fitted temporarily - don't ask!). As you might expect, everything was a bit sore afterwards3, but that has gradually subsided. I'd asked the surgeon how soon after the surgery could I start running again and he'd said 4 weeks - so today was the day!
Towards the end of my time waiting for the op I had felt able to experiment with some gentle jogging and short walk/runs, so it wasn't a full 8 months since I'd last done any running. I decided to try 3 minutes run, 2 minutes walk for 5k and after a warm up and a few stretches, I was off! I was a little anxious but all went well with no unexpected after-effects and a time of 37.53. It certainly felt good to be back - but I must continue to take things easy for a while!
The other issue I've recently realised is that up until the diagnosis I was doing a range of exercises for various bits of my anatomy every day when I wasn't running. I started to do them again the other day and realised that my memory of most of them is somewhat lacking or nonexistent! Oh well, back to the drawing board……
NRC 10k plan - run 2
Another First! 
