Tut, tut - no stretches!

No running today and, probably for a while… This afternoon I visited the physio, unfortunately the one I have visited in recent weeks was away. The problem in my lower leg has persisted and definitely it is shin splints, which I knew – simply I wanted to ignore; otherwise I would not have been able to do the marathon. He examined my leg and felt the muscles and the bone and I can tell you that in some parts of my leg it hurt a lot.

I will monitor the situation in coming days and I will see how I pull up, otherwise I will go for a scan on my lower right leg.

As the physio was examining me today and telling me I was mad with the running (okay facing up now, happy?) – a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction crossed my mind because it was pure determination that got me through the finish lane at the Arts Centre on October 8. A normal person would have waited for things to improve and then run a marathon.

I was silly enough to tell him: imagine if my legs had been better, I would have done a better time than the 3h38m… “Masoquismo puro y sencillo” (masochism put simply). That’s a different story now.

The physio asked me if I had another event in mind, to which I responded yes. He then said, you need to do no running for six weeks, do cycle or swin; then return to training and you will be ready for another crack at a long event.

Prior to the Melbourne Marathon an English friend send me an email when I was telling her about my lower leg problems. One sentence speaks thousands: “Tut, tut - no stretches!”

Three hundred million people in the USA
The population of the United States of America reached 300 million people on October 17, 2006 - almost 39 years after the 200 million mark was reached on Nov. 20, 1967. According to the US Census Bureau the total population increases one person every 11 seconds. One third of the USA’s population is deemed as ‘minority’ (Goodness me!). Hispanics (sic) continue to be the largest minority group at 43 million. The second largest minority group was blacks (40 million), followed by Asians (15 million).

World population
By the year 2050, the world population is estimated to be 9.4billion. The world population increased from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion by 1999. Population growth peaked in the 1960s.

Asia population
In 2002, there were 3.5b people in Asia. By year 2024 there will be 4,375 million and another 500 million people will be added by year 2050.

Meanwhile, Australia’s estimated population was 20.1 million in 2004. By year 2050 the projected population is estimated at 26.4 million. Australia ranks 52nd in population size (2004) and is projected its rank to fall to 64th by 2050.