Injuries getting better!

Its been a long long time since my last post. I apologise for that to those who do read here.

So what has happened recently, well I am still staggering my way through the whole fun of the NHS system. I had been told before about the way it is run and everything being so poorly run, well I never knew it would be such a broken system. I have experienced several moments of madness over the last few months, I will only share one example of the complete lack of logic I have seen first hand.

I went to see my second specialist about my knees, he said I need to have an MRI so referred me to have a scan. Little did I know that the MRI department was in the same hospital, I called them up the next day and they said they had not got my referral. Then I realised they were in the exact same building.... I asked how they had not got the referral, and the answer I got was staggering. They send the referral my post, not only a waste of paper, an envelope, someone printing it and putting it in the envelope but also the stamp in the post. I asked if they could sent it to the department by a fax. No was the answer, “sorry sir, it does not work like that”.... Great, so it took 6 days to get a piece of paper from one building to the same building only 300m down the corridor, and we wonder why the NHS spend so much money, logical solutions like that may help explain. Hopefully that is the end of my regular blog post rant.

Around three weeks ago I started having treatment from Henley Practice (part of athlete service) in Henley on Thames. Firstly from Laurence, then Charlotte. They had me doing glute strengthening exercises with loads of rolling on an iced bottle, they were treating the tight muscles around my knee every 3-5 days. For a week I kept my homework up and did exactly what I was told, I also have started a gentle few minutes on the cross trainer. So after the first week I started to feel some improvement in my knee, the range I could get with less pain. This was the first time in 6-8 weeks I noticed any progress with teh knee movement and pain levels. This was great news and suddenly you get the feeling you are not going to be injured full time.

It does sound crazy but even being able to spend a couple of hours a week on a simple cross trainer was a huge deal to me! SInce then 2 more weeks have past and I am now able to do over an hour in one hit on the cross trainer and upping the rehab exercises. I have now been allowed to do eccentric (I think thats what they are) weights for my knee issues which also seem to be assisting the recovery time. I would like to thank both Laurence and Charlotte for their support and continued help. Without them I think I would still be miserable and counting the days I have been off the bike. Now there is some light at the end of the tunnel, not a beam of light but certainly something to make you squint a wee bit! Laurence is a partner in Athlete Service (http://www.athleteservice.com/) and will be having a grand opening of their new shop in mid January. I will keep you posted with news of an exact date.

In other news, While I have been unable to train properly I have been given the task of trying to drop some weight to help me up these pesky hills in the summer! As I shockingly managed to GAIN weight in the three weeks of racing the Haute Route, I knew at some point I had to nip this problem in the bud and learn how to control gaining weight so easily! I was around 69-71kg at the start of October. I had dropped at best 2kg by the start of November and being given the task of getting as near to 60kg as possible by christmas with (at the time) no way of exercising, this was a big task. The challenger in question had given me some good tips so I set off in early November. I will write a more comprehensive blog all about how and what I have been doing, with tips and possible things to think about if you also want to drop some weight.

Currently I am down to 63kg.