Tidying up a few bits and pieces and realised I haven't updated this for months. Insta posts are more frequent but all in all there hasn't been much to add, which is probably a good sign.

I still haven't done the Zipline but it is very much on my 'to do' list for some point in the next couple of months. I didn't do it in September as my knee was a bit wobbly after the summer holidays so wanted to get a good month back on the regular physio to stabilise it before risking it.

Then, after 4.5 years successfully dodging it, Covid finally caught up with me in October, wiping out the second half of that month and into November. The first week I was totally floored - didn't even want to leave the house so must have been rough - then it was a veritable variety act of weird Covid-related symptoms for the next week or so. I gradually got back to the gym in the second half of November - building back slowly as my lungs definitely weren't right for another couple of weeks, almost like trying to breathe with a brass mute in my lungs when I tried any cardio - and then, well, hello December and family/work Christmas diary madness.

Oh, nearly forgot - we also had a snow day in November too and I didn't think twice about getting out in the garden with the kids and running around to dodge snowballs - priceless ☃ Then we hit high school entry exams for the eldest, which took all my time to support her. I'm going to say it here because, well, I can't say it elsewhere as everything is so competitive among the school parents but I'm SO bl**dy proud of her. In a week where a nasty chest infection needed antibiotics, then flared her asthma and culminated with the poor thing on steroids, she knocked it out of the park anyway and won herself an academic scholarship, a music scholarship, free music lessons and a place on her high school's athlete development programme, to boot 🏆

Given all the politics around VAT and independent schools in the UK at the moment (I'm fully State educated but there weren't any spaces in local primary schools when the eldest was due to start - 127 applications for 90 spaces in our catchment state primary, 121 of which were in catchment), she knew how much was riding on it. She carried that pressure I never wanted a 10 year-old to be aware of, and absolutely nailed it when I'd probably have buckled. She totally blows me away 💕

Stick that in your pipe Bridge, Rachel and Kier 😡 (polite version). Believe me, YOUR shoulders are considerably broader than ours!!

Anyway, that detour into politics aside, here we are in 2025 and back to the knee. I've pretty much got full flexion now - it's uncomfortable but do-able 🎉

Running is coming back to the point I can just drift off while I'm jogging and think about other stuff rather than hanging on for the next walk interval 🏃🏻‍♀️ Speed is up 33% on around six months ago too so, not the fastest progress but it IS still there!

Also got myself sorted with some new trainers now I'm ready to take the running outside again - thanks Active Foot Company for really good service and chance to try various different trainers before choosing my new pair. Before the latest lay off, I always had Asics but I really wasn't getting on with the ones I bought last year - felt more like they were wearing me than the other way round - but my new Mizuno WaveRiders? I ❤️ them 🤩

I've been down to London for day for work, in heels, and no problems stomping around the city, underground et al - another important 'female' landmark in this rehab process, especially when you're 'under tall'!

I'm still in the gym around four times a week; jogging, physio'ing and weight training, or doing my martial arts-inspired class, and everything seems to be nudging in the right direction. New PBs on leg extensions and hamstring curls; I can finally do mountain climbers properly again (couldn't quite get the flex to do them without dragging my foot along the floor for AGES), and the little imbalances you notice when you start doing stuff 'normally' again are beginning to even out. I'm even doing the switch leg kick jumps in my class and starting to include more of the other high-impact options 💪🏻.

My only current challenges are hopping side-to-side (the knee doesn't like that one bit and properly moans about it); hopping down from height; and hopping up onto a block more than one step high. The cartilage in my 'good knee' has also been playing up for a few weeks so I'm just taking the impact off that for a while and making sure I'm hitting the same strength-training physio stuff I've been doing for the HTO/ACL leg anyway. Quads, quads and more quads.

So, all-in-all I'm feeling pretty positive (I know, right?!). There will be another update when I've done the Zipline (for better or worse), then I'll give it say six months of pushing things more and see where we end up/make a decision about the plate then. For now, over and out!