Another birthday. Meh. Still, better than the alternative.
I’ve decided I’m going ahead, slowly, with the bike conversion. I say “conversion”, because it’s gone way beyond changing the handlebars. I’ve ordered a sheet of 5mm thick, strong aluminium (there are different strengths, who knew?) and I’ll see how I get on with making a clock bracket. If I don’t make a horrendous lash of that, then I’ll think move on to the rest of the stuff I need to do. The aluminium was only £13 so it’s not going to break the bank to see how I get on.
My other new is the physio guy got back to me. He’s really good, and oddly conscientious. I say that because he’s written me out three long and involved emails and replies, but because he can’t physically see me, due to lockdown, he won’t take any money. I mean, if I was an existing client, or whatever, maybe, but I’m just some randomer pestering him to work for free. I said that to him, that I was glad to pay as it’s harsh asking him to work for free, but he’s still not taking any money. Decent chap, straight away.
He started me off with a load of tests, putting a belt or towel under my relaxed foot and lifting/ twisting without using foot muscles. Prodding under the painful area, etc to make sure it wasn’t a fracture, and it was actually the muscles or tendons causing the pain. After the test I realised it wasn’t a pain on the top of my foot so much. Now that it was really hurting I could specify where the pain was exactly.
That lump. Excuse the malting skin look, it’s ibugel flaking off. Apparently this is your peronious tertius, which is a muscle that acts a tendon (except for 8% of people who don’t have one at all, I read. Weird if true.) It controls the lifting and rotation of the foot.
He said that the lower limbs take longer to heal as they are further from the heart and have restricted blood flow. Therefore I should do 10 minutes light rubbing a day to stimulate blood flow to the damaged area. He said that I should wait until the weekend for the initial rest, then focus on cycling or swimming, with much reduced running.
He explained that the reason why the pushbike ride hurt so much was because if you have the old, standard flat pedals, you can only press down. With the newfangled clip-in pedals, as your foot is attached to the pedal, you automatically pull up as well as pushing down. (I still think the twisting in and out of the clips made it a lot worse as well). I’ve changed my pedals to the flat ones that came with the bike, and downgraded my short run trainers to pushbike shoes. My run trainers are ‘control’ ones, made to stop you rolling your foot, so hopefully they’ll help on the bike as well. I rode to work and back on Thursday and Friday, my foot was OK. Not perfect but not worse.
Yesterday was my day off and my foot wasn’t bad at all so I had a bit of a test run. I set out as slow and steady as you like. Not bothered about the time, just out here to see how my foot feels… looked at my watch at half a mile, 9.30m/m pace. WHAT! Did 6 miles in at a sub 8 pace. I could feel it had hurt my foot a bit, but nothing much. Today I went for a very gentle run, but at 3 miles I was thinking about my twitter chum who’d just done a fast 5K (3.1 miles), so I stopped, had a breather, then legged it back. I was hoping for 7 m/m pace, but it was a thousand degrees (at least) and I just didn’t have it in me. I did it at 7.20 m/m, which was a 22.39 time. My PB is 21.40, so I’ll take it.
The main thing to take from it is my foot is still working and not hurting.
Some other things I’ve taken from Adrian, the physio guy, is applying some stuff called kinesio tape, which is like an elasticated tape that it supposed to support damaged bits, while allowing them some natural movement. And, as it’s about controlling the movement of my foot, I’ve bought some new trainers to replace my short run ones. They say the padding breaks down after about 400 miles, so you start picking up impact damage on your runs, and for me it’s doubly important as the padding is all that stops me from rolling my foot. I think I bought my last pairs in August. I’ve run 450 miles this year alone. Oops. Good job I had a month off with lurgy, I’ve run 122 miles this month.
Anyway. New trainers, flat pedals, foot rub, tape, reduced running and strength exercises. I think that’s it. So during the week I’ll just be pushbike commuting for exercise, with small runs on my days off.
When we return to normal I’ll see Adrian for a physical consult. He seems to be a good egg and I want this sorting.
My only other news is, as lockdown is lifting quite a bit, I put my Honda up for sale again. This time it got snapped up. First person to look at it was there to buy it at asking price. When he turned up it was some really skinny guy and his mate. The mate was a biker so took it for a test run. The skinny guy got talking, he was on notice. He’s had bits of his guts out, showed me a tube sticking out of his stomach. Cancer. He didn’t know how long he’d got, but wanted to get a bike and do a big tour of European mountains. He was just starting out, had no kit, so I gave him a nearly new lid and a bike cover. A bucket list biker. He’s not even got his license yet, his test is on Friday. His mate rode it home for him.
Poor chap. He was only 4 years older than me. I hope he gets his grand tour. I can’t see that happening until lockdown lifts.
Twitter hasn’t been very fun filled or full of whimsy the last few days so I’ve nothing to report. It has been amusing me to see the people on my running account, who were chosen for running and such and not vetted for ideological purity, all coming together as one to rage against the Bozo/ Cummings catastrophe. These are a mixed bag of people but as one they are incensed by Cummings touring the country in complete contempt of the governments own guidelines, laws, and policies. And the Tory party saying it’s alright for *him* to do it, just not us plebs.
A vicar tweeting about funerals they’ve had to hold with families not allowed to attend, a husband not allowed to visit his dying wife, had to listen on the ‘phone to her dying alone.
While Cummings drives 260 miles to see his parents.
There are some very miffed people out there right now. Which is nice to see.
Something funny to end on, one from the archives from Forest Fr1ends. Whenever I think of it I laugh. I paint the whole ‘off camera’ bit of the joke in my head. Cracks me up.
Stay safe.
Buck.
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