Needing some stability

Picture: What my spine should look like...not all squashed and crushing nerves.

I did my trip to the physio yesterday (with clean undies on!). The news was not good. Basically I have been lacking in what they call 'core stability', which is the area around your abs and sides that holds all your body in place, especially your back. In short when I have been on my long runs my back starts to arch because the core stability is weak. The arching has then squashed the disc things together, thus causing inflamation around the nerves...which in turn is quite genuinely a pain in the arse! Not just there, but lower back and legs too. The cure is doing lots of work on building it up. This could mean pilates classes which looks like the most boring and slow exercise. I just can't see myself doing it but then I might have to don my leoard and head band and get down to the gym. The other is to use an exercise ball and do lots of balance work. I opted for this as its slightly more fun and does seems to bring a bit of relief fairly quickly.
This all means that the marathon is now slipping away and months of training will be lost to the wind. Now that I look at running web sites and guides, I can see there is a lot out there about this core stability thing, but I have never really paid much attention to it as the market is flooded with as many useless tips as there are good ones. It makes sense to do it, but for me its all a bit late in the day. Learn from my error if you plan to do any serious running.