For those of us who don’t remember our primary school chemistry, the litmus test uses a special bit of  paper  which contains a chemical extracted from lichen to indicate if a solution is acid or alkaline – turning red for acid and blue for alkaline.

My ‘litmus run,’ as Sudhir put it, was designed to gauge how effectively the physio exercises have been at treating my injury and if I’ve learned to run in a ‘good’ way – with the right muscles activating and my poor battered IT band left well alone.

Well, I’ve done two runs in the last couple of days – in intervals of 4 minutes of running to two minutes of walking with four running intervals yesterday and five today. And I feel OK in the IT band (although the foam rolling is more painful post-run). The total distance covered – a rather pitiful 7.5k or so – isn’t indicative of much but the fact that totally different muscles to usual are feeling it – my calves and hamstrings, mainly – makes me think that I’m doing something better.

Not 100% convinced I’ve completely sorted it out, however, so the run not as effective as litmus paper. I’m going to go back to physio early Tuesday morning – but at least I’m once again blogging about running, and not, erm, not running.

The worrying thing is my fitness seems a bit poorer (probably not helped by running on diet) after the interval of not running. Hoping that I can get enough roadtime in ahead of the half in a few weeks time to make it through non stop, without injury – all the achievement I can hope for at this point.

Wish me luck!