Last Wednesday I had my last physio appointment. This was just to give Jayne my physio a chance to make sure I was still recovering okay and to give me a final check. When I last wrote in early Feb I had almost regained full flexibility of my left leg. A couple of weeks after that I was able to manage 15 degrees on both legs (the target I had been given) and since then I've been continuing to do the stretching and strengthening exercises Jayne gave me. In the last couple of weeks she had also introduced easy 10-15 min interval sessions for me to do on my treadmill (1 min brisk walk followed by 1 min slow jog). Last Wednesday Jayne got me to jog continuously for ten minutes and there were no after-effects. So she has given me the okay to start slowly building up the treadmill interval sessions and sent me on my way. The final message was that when I'm ready, I can do more running and less walking. And then when I am ready and have built up the time and distance, I can think of venturing outside and start pounding the pavements again. I have to say - it's been very frustrating to not be able to run for these last three months and I've seen other people out running as I've been driving around and have wished I could be there with them.
With my left calf feeling much better recently, I have been out walking with the local Rambler's groups. Just a flattish 6 mile walk with the Swindon Ramblers to begin with and that went okay. So a couple of weekends ago I went along to the Cirencester Ramblers and tried a longer 9 mile walk which had a few more hills. I'm happy to say that seemed to go well too though I did give myself a minor scare later on. After I had showered I was massaging my slightly achey feet (not used to the exercise!) and thought I could feel some swelling underneath the left foot. I thought it might be some knock-on effect from restarting running. But I got Jayne to check it over at last Wed's session and she reassured me it wasn't connected to the calf problem - it was just a minor issue with one of the tendons and she sorted it out there and then.
Boots! :-)
I knew it wouldn't be a five-minute job finding some new walking boots to (eventually) replace the current ones. I visited my local Cotswold Outdoor and after they measured my feet and I had tried on a number of different pairs, I plumped for these Meindl Toronto boots ..
I wore those around the house but after a week or so decided they weren't quite right for me. So I went back to Cotswold Outdoor. The guy helping me measured my feet again and scratched his head about the ones I had chosen (he couldn't work out why they had been suggested). So after another bout of trying on various boots we thought we had found an alternative in the shape of these Meindl Bhutan boots ..
However, after a couple of weeks of wearing these around the house I still wasn't 100% sure about them. And bearing in mind I am planning to use them for the 200 mile C2C walk in a few months time I took them back to Cotswold Outdoor and got my money refunded.
My current boots are made by Brasher and I decided to try a new pair of that make. Yesterday I visited my nearest Blacks Outdoor but they didn't have the model/size in stock that I wanted. But I went to the nearby Millets and came away with these Brasher Hillmaster II boots ..
So another week or two of wearing boots at home is on the cards and I have my fingers crossed it will be third time lucky. These ones certainly seem to 'feel' like they suit my feet but time will tell.
