The Achilles Knee

I hear that an absence of posts is starting to cause an escalation of unrest amongst the Luddites, as opposed to withdrawal symptoms in readers, so it's time to correct matters.

I had my follow up appointment with the physio, where I got a house point for ankle flexibility, a decent grade for glute strength and a middling C- for foot strength. Turns out my overall grade was sufficient to progress from the spinning Jenny to the Spinning Mule. I now have a program of weight training (one legged squats while standing on tip toe anyone?), foot alignment drills, flexibility exercises and balance drills. Once again, a fairly time-intrusive prescription but it's a relief to focus on dynamic strength over isometric strength - as the latter always feels as though you are squeezing something out as opposed to achieving something.

Since then I have graduated / progressed / regressed (delete as appropriate) to a new sort of knee pain. Relocated (generally) is the knee pain below my knee cap, to the more upper class neighbourhood (with a view of my ball bag) underneath the knee cap. As it's pain I'm unfamiliar with I am adopting the cautious approach of ignoring it and trying to carry on as normal. Generally the (or is it my) view on patella tendonitis is you can carry on without doing any further damage. Hopefully true, otherwise I'm going to look like a de-cleated Oscar Pistorius in a few years.

Anyway, a bit of rare excitement in the offing next week. I fly to the USA on thursday and am having a crack at a road 5k. It seems quite a while since I ran on a course that didn't require a spade and wellies to navigate.