Sounds like "piriformis syndrome" where a tight piriformis muscle can press onto the sciatic nerve and the pain gradually radiates outwards sometimes affecting the sacroiliac joint. This muscle can be particulalry tight in runners as it is one of the main muscles that stablises the pelvis during running, if not stretched out correctly it becomes tight and hence the problem. I'm a qualified iyengar yoga teacher so would recommend trying attending  an iyengar yoga class which will give you a good variety of postures to stretch out this area. You can search for a teacher on the website www.iyengaryoga.org.uk. All iyengar teachers are trained to ensure correct alignment in postures and supports are used to ensure you don't injure yourself. If you don't have time to go to a class here is a useful exercise that will work into this area and also a list of yoga postures that will help to stretch this area (names are in sanskrit but you can look them up on www.yogajournal.com and it will show you a picture of the posture and basic instructions on how to do these). It would be better to get a qualified teacher to show you these to ensure you are stretching properly and not too far! Massage will also help.

Exercise: Lie on your back with your knees bent up towards your chest, arms out at shoulder level. Cross the right leg over the left and then bring the knees over to the right arms (keeping the left shoulders on the floor as much as possible) hold for 5 breaths. Bring the legs back to centre, swap crossing of legs and then repeat on with the knees to the left.

Postures that will help: Baddha Konasana, Janu Sirsasana, Supta Padangustasana I & II, Trikonasana

Hope this helps!

Talking of back pain, I felt my back go yesterday when I got up from the settee. It's typical as I have two 10k races on the next two sundays with next sunday being the one I want to get a new PB.

I tried this morning to run but the usual shooting pains up the sides of the legs and back stopped me after 50 yards. So back to the house pop a couple of painkillers and have a rest, fortunately I have already completed my 40 miles and quality runs for the week, this one was a Brucey bonus.

So the trackwork looks out tomorrow and I'll consider an easy run on Wednesday, by which time as history shows (as I have a long history of back pain) I should be ok as last time this occurred was last November but I was able to run through that one.

Where's that comfort food.

Situ update........ After scoffing an inordinate amount of comfort food consisting of pizza's and ice cream I manaed to do a very slow easy run of 2.62 miles this morning which took 26 minutes, no music just sheer concentration.

I took the precaution of going undercover just in case I crashed and burned due to my back injury reoccuring by wearing jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt, last thing you would want to see is a 50 year old clad in the latest high tech lycra dragging his feet and doubled up in pain, godd advert for running eh?

Anyway after a couple or three twinges at the start due to rubbish posture, I managed to straighten up after half a mile and picked up the pace, in fact I was only going to do one lap of 0.87 miles and ended up doing 3.

All seems good, going for a five mile easy tomorrow morning, with headphones blasting out AC/DC Highway to Hell.

Countdown to Lichfield 10k on Sunday, and update on my back problem. Done a stupid o'clock (04:30) run of 10k at easy pace but with hills this morning and all went well but I did have a reminder a couple of times near the end when the style slipped a little and it felt like my lower disc was ready for a sharp exit, but I managed to compose and carry on, done it in just under 53 minutes.

This evening I felt really good and decided to give my back a bit of a stress test, we have 2 lakes near us and to complete a figure of 8 the mileage is 0.75 mile. So I decided to do 5 laps comprising of easy/steady/tempo/steady/easy.

It could not have gone better as the tempo run lap was recorded average of 6:34 min/mile pace. If you asked me 48 hours ago about the race on Sunday then I was considering pulling out as it was that painful, now I'm thinking of doing a full blown quality run on Friday either a hill session or three mile tempo run which puts me back on training track so to speak.

I will of course have a complete rest on Saturday, and by the way I'm back onto the healthy eating. 

It's the day of judgement, I've had the last 2 days off from running and only done 20 miles running this week which is half what I usually do and I only managed to do one quality run this week, the others being easy run cos of the back.

My back feels ok although very mildly aching which will probably shake out when I start warming up.

So the 10k race is on, I will know early on into the race whether to hold back or go for the PB, if it's the latter then I need to be pacing 06:45 - 06:50 to have any chance, probably a little faster for the first half as the majority of uphill running is in the second part.

Porrage scoffed with banana, going to do some gentle back stretches.

Good morning Derek.
That'll be some acheivement if you manage to get a PB with a dodgy back !!!
But then again, going off what you've acheived so far in your running career I wouldn't put it past you.
Good luck pal and I hope the back holds out.

Hi all,

Well I turned up that was the main thing, the back was a aching a little but I shook that out whilst warming up, put the special race shoes on you know the ones with the wings on the ankles. It was a sizable event with 825 runners, lovely weather but a bit windy.

Started off with a bit of a pace once the squeeze out of the narrow lane had past, downhill for the first 1.5k passed a few people and vice versa.....avoided the poor young lad at 2.5k who's breakfast didn't agree with him and was hurling chunky bits into the hedge. Back holding up well considering that the exact time last Sunday I tried running and done 50 yards before I hobbled home in a quazimodo style walk.

At 5k a marshal was sounding out the times as you went past, I think mine was 20:50...game on.

Now for the uphill bits from 5k all the way through to the finish, 6k drinks station....rubbish cups again, onwards and upwards. At 7.5k got mild stitch in left hand side !!!! how did that happen?...never mind drop the pace slightly, deep breaths, coming to a good downhill section.

8.5k stitch gone... looked at Garmin, average pace 06:56, oh bu***er, never mind, last kilometre mild uphill, go on autopilot and pass a couple of runners, check on the pulse...moving from 170 - 174 which is my race zone up into 176+.

400m up the pace slightly...not too much, back still ok but the legs are telling me they have had enough..didn't take any notice of that.

The last 200m is quite a steep gradient up which ends up last 100m on the fields uphill to the finish. Once on the grass, unfurl the batman cape and pass the lad in front of me with an impressive uphill sprint, I did notice that two others behind me was on a mission but couldn't catch me. That last push got my pulse to a 184 high.. new maximum heart rate to record.

Anyway......didn't better my PB of 42:38, I came in gun time at 43:19 or chip time (my official time) of 43:12, 89th out of 825 or in the top 11% of finishers. Never mind the 10k PB will have to wait until next year now.

I'm of to the chiropractors for my scheduled bone cracking twist and turn tomorrow and he will do some intensive work on my back ready for next week's 10k race in the national forest which is going to be a fun run more than anything else. 

Thanks Martin funny you should say that, they said there would be jelly beans handed out at 6k but all I got was a cup of water, I was looking forward to that.

I think the lad is ok, must have been the chunky carrot and coriander stew he had for breakfast.