Well, it feels very strange to be writing another update but here it finally is.
Firstly, what a year it has been!! Tricky to know what to say without sounding utterly trite but when I last updated the blog, few of us had any real idea what was about to hit the world in terms of Covid-19 and here we are, almost a year later and still in the midst of it all.
On the back of a week where I’ve had to take the 2 year old for a test - negative thankfully but not an experience I wish to repeat - and my 18-month-old nephew has been in and out of hospital with some kind of viral infection and crazy high temperature - I’m hyper aware that writing about knees is very much small fry but, almost 12 months on from my last blog, there are updates that might be useful/interesting to those who are following.
So, squeezing almost a year into as short a blog as possible (I know, right?)...
... I’d been continuing my physio (knees and hips) in the gym right up until lockdown 1.0 hit in the UK in March - trying to get as much strength and stability as I could to allow me to get back into exercise, even if in a relatively restricted way.
When lockdown arrived, attention turned to keeping everyone fit and healthy while attempting to work full time from home to keep my business running, homeschooling a five year old whose work was all set for iPads but who didn’t have one at home, and entertaining a 1 year old. With my other half also working full time in another business - furlough was not an option for either of us - I’m HUGELY grateful to clients old and new who joined or remained with my business in that time. In fact, the business has grown significantly over the last 12 months (touches wood) but, as you can imagine, that created its own challenges in terms of getting things done when our teams were also juggling work with added health and caring responsibilities.
Needless to say, not much physical activity took place during that time, beyond taking the kids out for a wander or occasionally getting chance to head out on my own and explore the local area with a quick walk to clear my head.
Hips and knees v. heart and lungs
The evidence of this lack of physical activity showed up very clearly in photos of kids activities submitted to their schools when I accidentally ended up in shot and I quickly came to the decision that once the nurseries re-opened, the old issue of too much exercise causing knee and hip problems was going to have to face off with the need for healthy heart, lungs and head, and the latter group needed to win.
When the gyms re-opened, I decided to find a class to help keep me motivated and started going along to BodyPump as the description seemed similar to the MummyFIT classes I’d done - and mostly enjoyed - on maternity leave. This turned out to be a good choice, with no impact to worry about but chance to rebuild fitness, strength and a lot of squats! I still have to leave out the lunges, which my knee literally hates when it’s the trail leg, but it’s progress, right, even if it’s sobering getting your arse metaphorically kicked by the many retired people in the class who are waaaaay fitter than me. Still, pride can be a great motivator…
Anyway, after a couple of months - and starting to get bored of doing the same class 2-3 times a week, I began flirting with the idea of running again and went out with the eldest for a few run:walk sessions during August, building up to….wait for it…. running for a whole mile!
It’s a tiny distance compared to what I used to run but the psychological boost of getting to that point again was brilliant and I was looking forward to kicking on again once we got back from a much-needed week away in a remote area of Cornwall at the end of the month.
Cornish adventures
While we were there, we took a trip to a trampoline park for an under 7’s session to entertain the kids on a wet Cornish day and let them blow off some steam after being largely stuck in the car for the first two days of the holiday.
Yes, I know. Trampoline parks and knees don’t mix. But I was being very very careful. And it’s a damed good job I was as my other half was simply bouncing up and down gently keeping an eye on our youngest when we heard a loud pop and down he went clutching his knee.
Long story short, when I went over to see him, his knee cap wasn’t where you’d normally expect it to be. An ambulance was called and the manager opened up the closed soft play area so I could attempt to entertain two upset but very energetic kids while we waited for it to arrive. Two hours later - and kids getting tired and hungry - the ambulance still hadn’t arrived so we managed to hop my husband out to our van in the hope we could get him in and drive to A&E. Except he couldn’t bend or straighten his leg at all and he’s 6’3” tall - most of which is legs - so, having managed to get him back inside the trampoline park, we agreed he’d wait with the manager for the ambulance while I took the kids off to get some dinner, and I'd follow on to the hospital afterwards.
Service station McDonalds wasn’t quite the Cornish seafood odyssey I’d been looking forward to that week but it had to do and when we got back over an hour later, he was still waiting for the ambulance and had been advised it would be several hours yet due to a crash on the local A road.
With much effort and some slightly blue language, we finally managed to get him into the van so we could take him ourselves but, having been told over the phone by paramedics that wait times at A&E were crazy, we decided to try the local minor injuries unit first in the hope they could at least patch him up. One braced leg, some crutches, pain killers and a referral form later, it was approaching 9pm when I drove the van back to our holiday accommodation a further 50 minutes away so we could attempt to get a night’s sleep, pack up all our things and head back up the M5 to Worcester A&E next day.
After dropping him off at Worcester Royal on our way home, it was confirmed that my husband had snapped his patellar tendon and would need an operation in the next few days to reattach it with c. 6 months recovery time. Happy holiday, right?
What larks!
Protecting the glimmer of hope
With an immobile other half - how selfish ;) — the running and gym returned to the back burner but, by October, I was finally able to start going to the gym more regularly and began thinking tentatively about picking up the running again. I'd need some accountability so maybe joining a C25k programme locally would help keep me motivated? Maybe, just maybe, if I could get up to 5km, I could add a 5km jog a week to two classes of BodyPump and possibly a swim? Maybe I could actually start getting back to old me... (who's that again?)
So, during the last week of October, I headed out for a trial session (week 5) with a local running group and it went pretty well. BodyPump had given me some baseline fitness back, the knee and hips didn’t complain and while my achilles got tighter as the run went on, that’s to be expected when you’ve done next to naff all for as long as I have.
The little running voices started wondering if perhaps I could get to 5km by Christmas? Then, wham, lockdown 2.0.
While I obviously couldn’t run with the group from then on, the seed of the idea had been planted so I downloaded the C25k app and decided to head out for one or two runs a week. Yes, the app is based on three runs a week but I’ve been crazy cautious - July to November is the longest I’ve managed to get any exercise going without breaking down since this all began so I certainly didn’t want to kibosh it by doing too much. For the same reason, I wouldn’t run if there’s any threat of ice or along muddy routes. Slipping was not an option I wanted to risk in any way, shape or form!!
So, with Michael Johnson set as the trainer audio - Olympic goals right, even if I do want to shout at him ‘You’ve never run more than 400m, what do you know? - off I trotted. Slowly but surely, week-by-week, I got the running up to 30 minutes. Not quite 5km distance wise but enough to stop the app programme and go it alone.
And on Saturday 19 December, while the eldest played tennis and the youngest had his swimming lesson (now with his Dad back in the pool thankfully as he’s well on the path to recovery), I hit the treadmill and set out on what I quietly hoped - in the back of my mind - might be the run.
The first 1km was heavy going - I definitely prefer running outside where you can vary the pace as you go - but little by little, mind game by mind game, I chipped away at it and approximately 40 minutes later, I’d done it. 5km in the bag. I’d probably have been quicker walking. Backwards. It wasn’t pretty and by heck it was boring but I’ve done it. What a bl**dy amazing feeling!
Next steps
Snow and ice over Christmas prevented any more outside runs for a few weeks - while adding a little festive magic to what has been an otherwise sh1tty year for most - but I’ve been out for a couple more runs since New Year and while it’s still not pretty, I’m definitely making progress.
I want to get quicker. I toy with the idea of longer distances when I’ve finished a run but then rein myself back in and remind myself that I just need to be satisfied that I can get out at all.
My hips and back have been good. The knee itself isn’t complaining too much at this level of activity. It’s still sore around the medial joint line (as ever), and I do have some pain an inch or so below my knee cap in the centre of my shin, near where the hamstring tendon scars are, and just below the mackintosh scar on the outside too. It doesn’t take much for my IT band to get stupid tight again anyway so I will just continue taking it steadily for now and see how it goes.
One weird thing I’ve noticed is that there is now a ‘dent’ in the front of my lower leg on the ACL side that isn’t there on the other leg and when I straighten my leg slowly, you can see the shin shift forward as it does - again, not there on the other side - so I know I have to be respectful of it and not take the p1ss, whatever the little running voices in my head keep trying to suggest!
If it means I have to be more tortoise and less hare than so be it but, by heck, it’s good to be back.
I've popped a few more research papers on the library pages for those who are interested but right now, I'm off for a run while the weather is fine and the lockdown rules allow. Stubborn is as stubborn does. Don't give up and, above all right now, stay safe!
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