This might hurt a bit!

I went for a massage on Friday, not a Thai massage, not one where everyone wears big thick white towelling gowns, not a Swedish one, where my athletic limbs are sensuously caressed by some statuesque Nordic beauty.

I went for a deep tissue sports massage!

"It'll hurt a bit" said Ian G, "it's quite painful" said Ian A, "You'll feel the benefit" said Steve C, even Lyndsey the physio said "you know this is might be quite sore?"

I'm not the most proficient exponent of the English language, I admit it, I eventually managed a rather woeful Higher English pass but I truthfully cannot find adequate words to describe how painful my massage was.

In my rose tinted massage vision I'd naively imagined scented candles, soothing music, warm baby oil and warm gentle hands soothing away my semi-permanent muscle aches.

Back in the real, candle and music free world the industrial sized vat of lard like lube and the diminutive and indefatigably chatty and cheery physio-terrorist, who must have trained at the Saddam Hussein School of relaxation inflicted pain on a previously unexperienced scale.

I can normally chat away on pretty much any topic, but I couldn't string together a cohesive sentence as fresh waves of manually induced pain assaulted my lower limbs.

I welcomed the opportunity to lie face down for the second half of the session as A - no-one could see me cry and B - I could stifle the urge to scream with a bit of surreptitious pillow biting.

"You’re not running this weekend are you? Because you may feel a bit bruised" she chirped quirkily.

 Whilst my brain said I was planning 22 trail miles tomorrow and a 12 mile road race on Sunday, but now my legs feel like they've lost a kicking contest with a bucking bronco, I might just crawl under a stone instead, my mouth betrayed me by saying "I might take it easy", if only!

I'd love to say the 40 minute session flew past but the pain seemed to stretch out like an endless tunnel. I did think of making a run for it, but the prospect of newspaper headlines of "Police are trying to trace man seen running through Dumfries bare-foot in his underpants" dissuaded me.

I really did think that post-massage I'd be feeling like Mo Farah on the start line; the reality of a 5'2" physio offering to help me down the stairs to the exit rapidly burst that particular bubble.

Writing this 3 days and 34 running miles later and sitting on a train to London for 3 hours I've just realised I don't feel any of my normal achy bits WOW!

Maybe it does help,  maybe I should "man up" and stop whining

Maybe I'll go back in 4 weeks’ time, but at least now I know what to expect.

However for the benefit of my fellow runners and in the interests of humanity I thought I'd provide some translations from physio-speak

"You've got some real knots in your muscles" - When I press this bit, you'll cry like a girl

"You're right legged, aren't you?" - You thought the left leg was sore, you ain't seen nothing yet

"Your left Achilles is tight" - you won't make it down the stairs to the front door

"Put your legs under the cold shower for at least 2 minutes after a run" - you'll get hypothermia

"Do you stretch off after a long run?" - Its self-inflicted, don't complain to me

Cheers