<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Health - Tri247</title><link>http://www.tri247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest health articles from Tri247</description><item><title><![CDATA[Post Natal Fitness Guide for Women]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_7120.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Following  the birth of Mike Trees&#039; daughter Amy, his wife Rieko was keen to get back into  training so they contacted renowned pre and post natal fitness expert Angela  Lockwood for her advice for new mums looking to return to fitness following  childbirth. Read Angela&#039;s advice in her article &quot;A Post Natal Fitness Guide for  Women&quot; on Mike&#039;s website.
Read  Mike&#039;s training advice and more articles at: www.miketrees.com/blog]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Foot Mechanix sponsor’s Irish Olympian Emma Davis]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_4737.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[For all athletes it is important to reduce the risk of injury, professionally made orthotics are a big step towards doing this. West Byfleet (in Surrey) based podiatry clinic, Foot Mechanix, have the knowledge and technology to create a detailed picture of your particular patterns of movement. From this they develop an individualised plan to help their customers stay injury free. This allows the body to function in comfort and as a result to the best of its ability.


The clinic have announced that they are to be sponsoring Olympian Emma
Davis up to the 2012 Oympics. Emma is very pleased to be receiving this support and comments, &lsquo;Karen (Knightly, owner of Foot Mechanix) focuses not only on treatment but also on injury prevention, this is key for me in moving forwards toward the Olympics in London in 2012. Like all triathletes I have had many injuries during my career, with Karen&rsquo;s help I am confident that the chance of injury is significantly reduced.&rsquo;

To contact Foot Mechanix, see www.footmechanix.co.uk or call 01932 353568.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Double Commonwealth Games Gold medalist dies from Cancer aged 41]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_4417.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Stories like that of Kerryn McCann&#039;s are always so tragic to hear about, but even more so when you&#039;re talking about a phenomenally fit 41-year-old with three children under the age of ten. 

Just over two years ago Kerryn defended her Commonwealth Games gold medal in the marathon, on home soil in Melbourne.  Kerryn&#039;s first was won in Manchester in 2002, when she beat her fellow team mates, Krishna Stanton and the former ITU World Triathlon Champion, Jackie Gallagher - who finished second and third respectively. McCann also competed in three Olympic marathons (Atlanta, Sydney, Athens), finishing 11th in 2000 in Australia. 

In The Sydney Morning Herald on monday, her manager, Nic Bideau (partner of Ireland&#039;s Olympic silver medalist Sonia O&#039;Sullivan) announced  that she died earlier that day and paid tribute to the &quot;fantastic race&quot; run by McCann to win the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and defend her title. &quot;She was really highly regarded, more than anyone in the running community - no one had one bad word to say about her,&quot; he said.

According to scienceblog.com sadly, Kerry is reported to have done nothing for three months after discovering a lump in her breast last year. At the time she first detected a problem, she was three months pregnant with her third child, Cooper. When she was at sixth months&#039; gestation, the lump was obviously growing rapidly and McCann could no longer ignore it. Early labour was induced so that McCann could begin chemotherapy immediately.

Tragically, although the full facts are not known, maybe one of Australia&#039;s finest long-distance runners would still be here today had she acted sooner - as scienceblog.com puts it, it most certainly is &#039;a stark warning&#039;, to us all.

 ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Parsons sidelined following Achilles operation]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_4097.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Following on from the news about Michelle Dillon&#039;s six hour back operation last week, another athlete has also had to go under the knife. Michelle Parsons - winner of multiple duathlon World and European age-group titles along with two top-five World Powerman Championship titles, victory at several Powerman races and a bronze medal at the European Powerman Championships - has had to undergo surgery on an achilles tendon tear. Although things are slightly better than first thought, it was initially diagnosed as a full rupture, this will come as devastating blow for Michelle, who has been managing a foot and achilles injury for several weeks.

Mother of two, Michelle, 41, is also a sports therapist working twenty hours or so a week on top of a rigid training program, that has seen her rise from a top age-group duathlete to a top class long distance elite duathlete. Michelle&#039;s injury is a double blow to a season that saw her ranked world #1 in the powerman series and win (for the second time), a bronze medal at the European Powerman Championships in April, but saw her excluded from the long distance World Duathlon Championships team. An interesting selection decision, that was mentioned in Tom Lowe&#039;s Duathlon World Long Course Championships preview back in August.

We received this news from Michelle&#039;s husband, Phil Parsons, yesterday:
 
&quot;Well the good news is that Michelle has not ruptured her Achilles but she does have a tear in the centre of the tendon which the specialist thinks is caused by the heel bone protrusion she has on her right foot. There are two bands of tendon on the outside that are still fully intact and strong which have been supporting the foot and only causing minor discomfort (you women and your pain thresholds). Suffice to say after seeing the specialist on Tuesday and having a further examination this morning she is going to have keyhole surgery to repair the tendon and shave down the bone on Thursday afternoon at the Nuffield in Bristol.&quot; 

&quot;The surgeon predicts that within six weeks she will be back on her feet and back in full training after 12. So she is really quite pleased to be able to fit in the op so quickly and effectively be back in training well before Christmas. All in all much better news then we thought in Italy last week when the message came through that it was ruptured and that would mean plaster casts and a much longer recovery period.&quot;

Tri247 wishes Michelle a speedy and successful recovery.
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Harrop gives birth to baby girl]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3657.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Loretta Harrop, Australia&#039;s former World Champion and a Silver medalist in the Athens Olympics, has given birth to her second child, a daughter named Emmerson Dianne. After a long and distinguished career she took a year out from the sport after her son, Hayden Luke, was born in 2006. The triathlon world had hoped that she would make a return to the sport, but in July 2007 she made the decision to retire from the sport, saying she had lost the desire to compete and wanted to focus on being a full-time mother to her son. Tri247 spoke to Loretta after the birth of her daughter and were told that mother and baby are doing fine and the whole family are thrilled with the new addition to their family.
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Another triathlon tragedy]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3043.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Two cyclists were tragically killed as a result of a collision with a sherriff&#039;s department patrol car on Stevens Creek Road in Cupertino on Sunday morning. One of those who died was former triathlete, Kristy Gough, who will be remembered by British triathlon fans as the third place finisher at Ironman UK in 2006. Kristy was actually born in Germany and moved back to the States with her American parents but retained strong ties to Europe through her long-term relationship with Swedish pro triathlete Clas Bj&amp;ouml;rling - who himself finished second at Sherborne that year.

Although she had recently moved towards the sport of cycling, where she was having some early success, her triathlon career took off in 2001 when she won the 18-24 category at Ironman California with a time of 10:56 which qualified her for Kona where she finished fifth in the 18-24 age group with a time of 12:30. In 2003 Gough finished second in the 25-29 age group and 12th overall at the Half Vineman race in an impressive 4:44. Her biggest age group success was in 2004 when she won her 25-29 age group at Hawaii.

A tribute to Kristy can be found on the IronmanLive website and there&#039;s a more detailed story on the San Jose Mercury website.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Of hospitals and healing...]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2142.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Since my last blog, I have mostly been doing ... hospitals. Well, while my tummy healed, I studied for and sat my second year physiotherapy exams (one more year to go!).  During this time, my sister gave birth to a baby girl who was rushed in for surgery almost as soon as she was born with a very rare and complicated heart condition. Then my dad got ill, but stubbornly refused treatment or medication, he is a retired pharmacist but he doesn&rsquo;t do drugs... (!).  This resulted in some leg complications so that he was unable to walk. I managed to test my newly acquired physio knowledge in the form of advice, which worked out to be correct. 

This was followed by a much-needed week off warm weather training -- well, OK, a week in an idyllic Caribbean resort -- squeezed in between college commitments and spent mostly playing recovery in the form of catching up on sleep. I did manage some open water swimming, of a warm and lovely kind, and a couple of jogs in the heat. There was also some serious carbo-loading going on, since it was an all-inclusive resort -- I even tried the liquid kind one night, when I ended up dancing with an elderly man in front of his wife (who ignored me for the rest of the week), and I&rsquo;d only had two glasses!

Returning home saw me start a hospital placement in London.  During this time, my mum was rushed into hospital, was discharged after a few days, but didn&rsquo;t even get to the entrance before she was rushed back in again.

My placement included working on a palliative care ward (terminally ill patients), which was extremely hard to do, plus treating elderly patients.  This involved quite a bit of lunging and squat thrusts (helping the old peeps to stand up and sit down).  Most of the placements are not local, which means a lot of travelling, being on your feet all day, plus constantly being assessed and tested. This is exhausting, especially as a mature and not quite fit student.

So, training to date has been almost zilch.  Apart from a rather, with hindsight, daft three mile run just a week and a half after my surgery (leading to the following day spent in bed due to pain - I think it was the drugs going to my head!), I either had no time or was too shattered to do more than a handful of sessions.  Nevertheless, I entered into the spirit of the season, and took part in the Milton Keynes open water 1k swim &ndash; shockingly cold to one used to Caribbean temperatures! I then completed a 10 mile club time trial on a new TT bike.  I was nervous of the bar end shifty things and still have muscle imbalances from the ovary-nasty. This had acted like a huge paperweight inside me, changing my body mechanics and tipping me to one corner in standing or sitting, resulting in a leg that is weaker and goes numb and hurts when I run or cycle.  Nonetheless, I was pleased that I finished.  Less than a week later, I completed a second TT on the same course with similar conditions, and was shocked to knock a minute and a half off my time!  Something has gone OK then. 

Choosing to complete just the swim part of the Eton College Aquathlon was sensible, since it attracts surprisingly fast people, including an obligatory non-triathlete posh boy with a ruddy face and big hair from the school, pulled in at the last minute and who usually destroys the field. In fact the race was won by one of the these very boys, who went off for a swim session straight after!

On Sunday, I completed the Windsor Sprint, I swapped down from the full distance due to my lack of training.  I was nervous, but reminded myself that I was going to enjoy myself. The swim was fine, apart from half the course where I was working really hard and the lady next to me was breast-stroking at the same pace!! How rare to hear &ldquo;you are 6th out of the water&rdquo; (I was in the first of two waves). I never got that in a full 1.5k!.  I had a stormin&rsquo; bike &ndash; well, relatively!  I could tell some men weren&rsquo;t happy about being &lsquo;doris-ed&rsquo; (beaten by a lady) as when I was about to overtake, they pushed harder.  I myself was overtaken by 2 gentlemen, one of whom I had the energy to joke with.  Out onto the run, and I heard &ldquo;there&rsquo;s three girls ahead of you&rdquo; &ndash; I managed to pick off one and the other girl then told me she hadn&rsquo;t completed the bike, meaning I was somewhere near the front. (I found out afterwards this was Zoe, the breaststroker, who had punctured but wanted to finish as she was competing for charity.)

When I saw my clubmate, Michelle, storming behind me at the turnarounds, reality hit that this was only one of two waves.  Michelle was in the second wave which started four minutes behind me, and as much as I wanted to believe it, she was definitely not that far behind.  However, I put my head into gear, telling myself that this was turning out a lot better than I had expected.  Hearing Steve Trew calling out my name on commentary was an incentive, as was John, Steve and Dawn on support, popping out all over the place to shout abuse at me, as the Windsor run allows.  I had said that if I was smiling at them, things were OK, which I managed to do most of the time. 

Afterwards, I did the usual thing of hanging around in wet clothes chatting to too many people as my lips start to turn blue.  But after changing, the sun was very considerate and warmed me up while I ate as much rubbish as I could to reload myself.  It was great to watch the elite races, and Mr Stannard looked fab as he finished to raucous applause and cheering.  However, since I had only had about four hours sleep the night before, I was fighting to stay awake &ndash; something I need to get right next time.  Back at home, washing out my wetsuit, a two-inch wriggly thing with pincers fell out &hellip; I really hope that it crawled in after I dumped it in transition.

So, although I am just at the beginning again, it is great to be back doing what I love, seeing old friends and making new ones, in the triathlon community.  It is only when it is taken away from you that you realise how much you miss it and enjoy it.  

Plans ahead include Dambuster next weekend, although the thought of a full distance is a bit daunting at the moment, plus a few more club races.  However, as my next placement is in East London, meaning a journey almost double the last one, I shall just have to sleep on it.
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bouncing babes]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2127.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Triathlon has its ups and downs but for two of the leading female athletes in the sport there&#039;s a little bit more to the &#039;ups&#039; and the &#039;downs&#039; at the moment!

Lisbeth Kristensen, long-time partner of Andrew Johns, has announced that she is expecting -- a fact that could well explain AJ&#039;s radiant smile and rapid racing of late. Congratulations to them both from all of us here at Tri247 and we look forward to following the exploits of the new athlete! 

So, that&#039;s the up - what about the down?

Liz Blatchford was, it turns out, unable to compete in the Corus Elite Series at Tredegar last weekend following a nasty injury from what appeared to be an innocent fall from her bike in a crit  race a fortnight ago. She&#039;s gone back to Australia to recover and will almost certainly not be able to race for six to eight weeks.

Liz admits she is resigned to this not being her season. She had that disappointing DNF at the Mooloolaba BG  World Cup back in March after which she underwent minor surgery to correct a labral tear in her hip joint cartilage. Back then she was able to resume swimming and biking remarkably quickly, although the return to running took a little longer. Liz&amp;rsquo;s spirits had been  up and she was  talking enthusiastically, late April,  in her website diary  about  her new Trek Madone and the advantage it would give her in future events she was training for.

However, as soon as  she was almost fully recovered  and just about back to full pace running, she was involved in a bike crash while training at Loughborough in an evening criterium race.  Liz, writing in her Blog tells us, &amp;ldquo;It was nothing out of the ordinary. However, the bunch was really big that night and twitchy. I didn&amp;rsquo;t like the feel of it from lap1. Someone swerved to avoid someone else, as you do, and went straight into my front wheel, taking it out.&amp;rdquo;  She added, &amp;ldquo;Before I could blink I was on the ground.&amp;rdquo; She remembers thinking &amp;ldquo;I really don&amp;rsquo;t need this right now&amp;rdquo; as she went down, landing heavily on her back.

Ever-plucky Liz admitted that she thought little of the fall afterwards and was confident that she had escaped any serious problems but, as the week drew on, she experienced increasing discomfort in her lower back. Time, she realised,  for yet another MRI scan. With typical humour Liz added &amp;ldquo;I have become so accustomed to MRI machines that I now use the time in the noisy claustrophobic scan tube as &amp;ldquo;nap time.&amp;rdquo;

The results of the scan were not good. Liz had sustained a bilateral fracture  of the sacrum, the compound bony triangle that seats the spine into the pelvis.  Even though Liz initially had planned to make for the alpine ski resort of Leysin for the next phase of her training, she has been forced to return to Australia with fianc&amp;eacute;e Glen &amp;ldquo;doing a good job as nurse.&amp;rdquo;  Essentially&amp;rdquo;, Liz explained &amp;ldquo;the location of the fracture is an awful place for an injury as just about every body movement involves it.&amp;rdquo; She now requires complete rest, literally six to eight weeks of doing nothing, not even swimming. Initially Liz expected to be fit to compete again by the end of July but tells us she is going to have to be &amp;ldquo;a couch potato until further notice.&amp;rdquo;]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Don’t make me laugh!!]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1727.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[I have often said to John &amp;ldquo;that&amp;rsquo;s funny &amp;hellip; for you&amp;rdquo;, whilst having a habit of laughing at my own jokes. But he&amp;rsquo;s either become a comedian overnight or has always been a bit a joker and I haven&amp;rsquo;t noticed. It&amp;rsquo;s when you have your tummy split open then stapled back together again that just about anything is painful, even when you smile! And John keeps making my tummy hurt.
It&amp;rsquo;s even funnier that when I was told I would need my tum sliced open, my response was to smile and be happy - maybe this would put an end to the myriad of health issues that have kept me out of triathlon for almost three years? Well, not quite, as a related condition is going to be subsequently treated, but fingers crossed.
My hospital visits coincided almost to the day that John was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. The CA125 cancer antigen blood test I needed raised a joke about me not possibly being able to have it, as cancer was &amp;lsquo;so last year&amp;rsquo; - and thankfully the test was fine. (John is now in complete remission, plus his mum&amp;rsquo;s cancer treatment has been successful &amp;ndash; a bit of a year that was).
The second scan by another consultant gynaecologist who was also a triathlete made for an interesting scene (I won&amp;rsquo;t go into the details!) whilst we discussed the London Triathlon.
It was a solid ovarian cyst, or growth, that I&amp;rsquo;d probably been carrying round for years, but it was large and interfering and would continue to grow. Pre-Lausanne (Worlds) last year, I did a very Victorian lady-like thing of fainting and falling down the stairs. Post race, well 3-4 hours later, I did a very chavette-like thing of wobbling around and projectile vomiting. My consultant thinks this could be related to my extra lump (to do with vaso-vagal trigger response and stuff to be more precise). Like many triathletes, I know my body well, and knew it would be a case of getting round the course, rather than racing. But since my wonderfully useless GPs had said everything was fine, I thought I&amp;rsquo;d have a go at what I could, rather than couldn&amp;rsquo;t, do.
I only changed to a new GP surgery a few weeks ago and requested a scan myself &amp;ndash; good job, eh?!. 
Well, you don&amp;rsquo;t get wine before an op on the NHS do you &amp;ndash; I did have to pay a lot for it, even though it was on doctor&amp;rsquo;s orders. I&amp;rsquo;d had a run through of the procedure with the consultant, anaesthetist and nurse the evening before and, being a student physio, all the technical stuff made sense. That&amp;rsquo;s when I started to get a bit nervous, but they all agreed that medical staff make the worst patients as they know what&amp;rsquo;s coming. So, I was told that I&amp;rsquo;d also have laughing gas pre-anaesthetic &amp;ndash; happy days! I was cracking a joke as I went under.
I had warned the doc about my low HR (41 bpm) but it caused a constant wave of panic with different nursing shifts, as the obs machine kept alarming. Anaesthetic and drugs can lower your HR and blood pressure even further, so I kept mumbling in a drug haze about being a triathlete and that they needn&amp;rsquo;t worry. Being competitive, when I was told I had a self-controlled morphine pump, I thought I&amp;rsquo;d see how little I could use. So for the first day I only pressed it twice. Then the doc told me that once the pain had set in it is difficult to get rid of it, and the pump should be used as much as possible. At this point I was grinning through quite a bit of pain, so thought I&amp;rsquo;d better get to work then. The pump has an alarm that sounds if you have pressed it too many times, except mine was broken, honest! It kept going off despite me only pressing it 3 times an hour (it was set to 5) and I had to keep explaining to each new nursing shift that I wasn&amp;rsquo;t a druggie as the alarm went off hourly.
Once off the morphine, I was given a different painkiller which unfortunately had another side effect &amp;ndash; the doctor said &amp;ldquo;Look, she&amp;rsquo;s gone cross-eyed&amp;rdquo;!! This meant I couldn&amp;rsquo;t get out of bed for another day whilst they changed me to a different drug.
I had my staples and drains out and one little stitch was left for an extra day, the Comedy Stitch. I named it this after the doctor told me its purpose, which is purely to reassure the patient that they are not going to pop open! It doesn&amp;rsquo;t do anything, just makes you think that you&amp;rsquo;re tied together &amp;ndash; and that is the only reason they put it in &amp;hellip; crazy!
When I was finally discharged, on the drive back from Wimbledon to Uxbridge, we couldn&amp;rsquo;t resist popping into the tri-shop in East Sheen, near the hospital. It took a mammoth effort to shuffle across the road into the shop and I don&amp;rsquo;t know what the poor bloke thought as we bought some elastic laces (forget tying laces when you&amp;rsquo;ve had a laparotomy) before I nearly fainted. 
Blimey &amp;ndash; your tummy muscles are connected to everything. It&amp;rsquo;s taken nearly a week to be able to do anything; it&amp;rsquo;s amazing how useless I&amp;rsquo;ve become, although I now have a lot of sympathy for ladies who have had their baby through the &amp;lsquo;sunroof&amp;rsquo;. But I can&amp;rsquo;t even watch any comedies to pass the time! ]]></description></item></channel></rss>
