No Running

After getting the prognosis for my knee, from the surgeon last week I decided to rest. The surgeon suggested no more training, until the Atacama Crossing event at the end of March, and then get the knee surgery in April. I'm compromising instead. I am going to take 2 weeks off running completely because my Patellar Tendinosis pain is too acute. Just walking around my house hurts, so running is going to do it no good whatsoever.

I went to the gym twice, and did do some leg strength exercises. I struggled with leg extensions and curls, so I ended up doing squats against the wall with an exercise ball instead. I went to Yoga, which I am definitely improving at, but avoided certain exercises that would aggravate the cartilage tear. On Saturday I did a short walk in the Roaches. Just 4 miles but 900ft of ascent. After over a weeks rest I didn't get any patellar pain, but when I over-strided just climbing a small boulder I felt pain from the cartilage tear. It was a useful exercise, because I learned that I can't overextend my leg, but my patellar didn't cause me the acute pain I have been getting for the last few weeks. I have had some physio treatment on it though. I had short wave heat treatment and ultrasound, and I will have weekly from now on. Given I have never suffered from Patellar Tendinosis before, I am hoping it is somehow tied to the tear injury; maybe I changed my gait and caused it? Regardless, I am living in hope that it will settle down and I can just get away with surgery to repair the tear and not the surgery to remove a small piece of my kneecap to cure the Patellar Tendinosis. The recovery time for that procedure is 3 months. So, we'll just have to see how it goes. I live in hope.

Here's a few pictures from the walk, just to brighten up the post. I'm experimenting with ‘Geotagging’ at the moment, and it appears to have been a success. Clicking on the photos will take you into Picasa and will show the location on the map where the photo's were taken. This was all done automatically when I put my digital camera's SD card into a new little GPS gizmo I bought. It then tags the photos with the longitude and latitude, and you can then view them on Google Maps and Google Earth. Clever huh? You can see your whole journey, and will also export the path into a KML file for viewing in Google Earth separately.









Finally, the classic "catalogue man pose"


So, more of the same this week. I will go to the gym 2 or 3 times and strengthen, do yoga, but avoid anything to irritate the knee. I am going to Tenerife for a long weekend on Friday. I intend to do quite a lot of walking each day, and some considerable ascent, so this will be a real test for the knee. Can it withstand the walking, especially the descent? I intend to pack the walking poles that I have not used for 18 months, and get some practice with them again, and hopefully take some strain off the knee at the same time. I intend to do at least one fairly hair-raising route in Tenerife; quite vertiginous and remote. Nothing is going to the nightmare I had in Tenerife last year, where I came close to falling victim of a tropical storm, finding myself alone, lost, wet and hypothermic in a remote mountain forest. You can read more about that here. I'm better prepared this time, and I will keep an eagle eye on the weather forecast!

Hopefully I'll have lots of stunning photos to show you next week. Take care until then. Have a good week.