I'm Not Built for Long Distance Running

In the few years before my injury London had opened up to me in a new way thanks to my use of a bike. It had become such a large part of my transport portfolio that it was rare for me to use anything else. The injury and more specifically the operation curtailed this and so today was a big day.

For the first time since the operation I cycled all the way to the hospital and back. It's a total distance of 15.04 kilometres. The sun was out, the traffic was calm and life seemed to have returned to some level of normalcy. I loved it.

At ACL club I came across an old friend, Spanish Bun. He had his operation on the same day as me, just before me. At the first trip back to see Mr Knee he was told off in no uncertain terms for not following instructions and seeing him at ACL club I was slightly sad to realise that he had not heeded the warnings. He was limping, he was unable to do most of the exercises and appeared to be about 2 months behind me in his recovery. This added to my sadness at hearing the news that someone else from ACL club, who had been attending pre-operatively, had still not got an op date and had been told to stop coming to the circuit training as it was making her injury worse. I'd bumped into her on the way in, as she was on the way out. She'd injured herself ski-ing and had just received that news that she was unlikely to be on the slopes before 2014. She was distraught.

As usual on seeing other folk worse off than myself I took a moment to count my blessings.

Moment over I had a word with Clodagh about my fitness regime. I wanted to know if my running should be focused on speed, distance or time. The answer was not the one I wanted; time. It was all about increasing endurance, building up general fitness, before going on to speed.

I don't like running, never have. I do it only to reach the ball. In fact, I don't like walking that much. Katie often brings a tennis ball when we go for walks and throws it for me to chase while she looks at the scenery, or whatever else it is that people do who like walking in the country.

Since being given the go ahead to start running I have run a total of 18.08 kms over 10 sessions and a running time of 150 minutes. I know this because I have a detailed spreadsheet to monitor my progress. I need to up this and I'm not looking forward to it but at least I've had the op, I'm at a point that Clodagh is happy with and my target of November 10th to play football is still a possibility. I'm counting my blessings, and will continue to do so as I count off the miles.

One final thing of note from ACL club was the arrival of Rodger. He's 37, teaches gymnastics, had his operation three weeks ago and is already looking fitter than I ever have. They were having to hold him back from doing level 5 exercises which I still haven't got to. His shockingly quick recovery time nearly made me fall off my stationary bicycle until I heard that this is the third time his cruciate has gone. Ouch. Counting my blessings.

Like a Shark, I keep moving

Having had my first run I was eager for another and so approached the gym excitedly the next day, aware that I should not try and go too quick. Feeling perky I continued my charm offensive on Ms Rable, the gym receptionist. I treat life like impro, always say the first thing that comes into your head.

"Ooh, you look a bit tired today." I thought this showed concern and that I'd noticed a change in her demeanour. Surely this makes me a nice caring person. She took it like a criticism.

"I ain't got no make-up on."

Again, first thing that comes into my.."You do realise that's a double negative which in fact means you do have make-up on?"

"No. I haven't. I got up late." As she was saying this I realised that she'd changed her hair. Previously it had been brown and curly, today it was straight, shiny and had a red tinge. If only I had said something about that rather than her looking tired. I filed it away for later and walked away from what was now an awkward situation.

On the stairs up to the gym there is a poster which has been there since my first day:

We Are Currently Updating Our Posters.

From what I can see this seems to be taking a rather long time. Not a single poster has changed since I joined. That doesn't make this poster incorrect but it is rather irritating. I decided that the next day I would bring in a post it note: 'No you're not' and see if that created a stir.

Before going on the running machine I go on the bike. This is my version of a warm up but because of my competitive nature I can't help myself wanting to beat the day before. I go too quickly then slow down near the end so that I advance on the previous day's score by just a little, then on to the running. Again I aim to beat the previous day by just a little. I'm running for 15 minutes and I'm aiming for just over 1500 metres. As I said before, it's not quick but it's enough to push the knee, and is actually quite tiring having not had any real cardio work for over six months.

At home, Katie is worried that I will do too much too soon. I explain that I'm running so slowly that the machine thinks I have stopped. I think she believes me. I explain to her how my charm offensive failed. She is never surprised by my lack of ability to talk to or understand women.

"Never tell a woman she looks tired."

"But I was showing concern."

"You might as well have said she's ugly."

"What should I have said?"

"Nothing. Don't talk to women, you don't understand them."

"Her hair looked nice. Should I have said something about that?"

"If you do that she'll think you're trying to chat her up."

"I'm just trying to be friendly, cheer her up."

"Believe me, you can cheer her up by not talking to her."

"Would that cheer you up?"

"What?"

"Me not talking to you?"

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Oh, okay. I'll cook the tea."

My next run came the next morning. The bin men, for some reason, keep not taking our bag out of the bin. We were just leaving the house as they went past, without our bin.

"Quick, Daniel, grab the bin bags and run after them."

"You said I shouldn't run too quickly." She grabbed the bags, chucked one at me and set off down the road. "You need to get there first, I'll be too rude." I chuppeted after her, trying to run at a pace no quicker than 1600 metres in 15 minutes, difficult to judge on the street when you're carrying a bin bag. I overtook Katie and got to the bin van. All the way I had been trying to think of a way to broach the subject without sounding middle class and uptight. As I arrived I believed I had succeeded.

Handing him the bag: "What's wrong with our rubbish, not good enough for you?" I said it with a chuckle in my voice just to emphasise that this was a light hearted way of telling him he wasn't doing his job.

"Where was it?" Katie had just arrived.

"Where'd'you think it was? In the 'king bin."

"Alright luv, no need to swear."

"You collect my rubbish" she'd gone all squeaky "and I won't swear." When she gets annoyed her voice goes so high pitched that dogs within 50 metres have to cover their ears.

"Well where was it?" I stepped in, there was glass around and I didn't want it shattered.

"In front of the house, brick building with a door, in the bin, round metal thing with a lid."

"Well I didn't see it."

Katie's head exploded all over the street and I had to drag her away.

Run Forrest Run!

The three month anniversary of my op was the 10th May. A vital day in the recovery as it is officially the point at which one gets assessed by the physio to see if you can start running again.

As I approached the ACL club on Monday just gone, I was a little nervous. It was a similar feeling to doing my A levels. Actually that's not true. I did hardly any work for my A levels, they coincided with a really good World Cup and I let myself down. Lazy did not even cover it. Here though I had worked hard, I'd been to the gym almost every day, I'd backed that up with lots of stuff at home, every hour or so doing some little exercise. So I was ready but the feeling in my stomach was too close to A levels to let me feel comfortable.

The test consists of two elements, the first is to test control and flexiblity, the second  stability.

Part One - The Star Excursion Balance Test.
Imagine standing in the centre of an eight point star. From the centre, stretching out to each point is a ruler.

Standing on your good leg you have to stretch the other leg out as far along each ruler as possible. Then you stand on your injured leg and do the same.

As I did the first half of this I realised that my supposedly good leg is not very stable. I was stretching quite far but was very wobbly.

"Have you been drinking?" Minnie was chucklling.

"I never stand on this leg, it's my kicking foot."

"Hmmm." She noted the distances that I managed on each point of the star. "Ok now on the crippled leg."

"Are you allowed to call it that?"

"Yep, let's go."

Slowly, gingerly, I stretched out. Amazingly it was actually more solid than the right leg. "It's because you have been doing so much work in strengthening it." I was able to reach about 80% with the acl leg of what the good leg could do. She seemed pleased.

"Ok, now the hop test."

Part Two - Hop Test
Standing at the start of one of the rulers you have to hop, on your good leg, as far as possible, and land it solidly. Nail it, as they say in gymnastics. Repeat two more times and use the best as a measure. Then repeat with the bad leg.

With the good leg I managed a long hop but the landing was awful, I wobbled all over and had to do some mini hops to control it. "Do it again, maybe a bit shorter, it's not the Olympics." I went again and managed a metre with a good landing. Attempts two and three came and went and my longest was 1.3 metres.

Now the bad leg. I felt so nervous at first that I couldn't take off. I got the yips. I couldn't jump. Minnie assured me; "Don't worry, it's fine, don't try to match the good leg, just do a little one first." I pushed off with my crippled leg, flew through the air, landed and nailed it. Wow.

Minnie wrote down: 27 cms.

Ok, I thought, need to go a bit further. I ignored the ruler and just let myself go as far as felt safe, 70 cms. "Not bad." Said Minnie with a boosting smile. "Cheers." "One more."

I bent the leg and pushed off...95 cms. "It's hardly Jonathan Edwards but not bad."

"At least I jump on Sundays."

Minnie was writing stuff down and looking at charts. She then showed me the figures, I didn't really see them as I was just waiting for the yes or no.

"So can I start running?"

"Yes..." I'm sure she said something else but I didn't hear the rest of it. This is the first major hurdle on the recovery, and I had jumped it, literally.

Yesterday I did my first run, on the running machine - 1500 metres in 15 minutes. Not quick, in fact you could walk it at that speed, but I ran it, gently, steadily, slowly but I ran it.

The Football Season Draws to a close - Part 2

Mayfield 3rd XI secured promotion with a 6-0 away win at Old Bealonians. I played no part other than suggesting to one of the players to hit a corner harder so it would hit someone and go in. He did, it did. 3-0 just after half time.

I was delighted that the team I had built the previous season had gone up, but felt detached from them. The only game I had got on to the pitch for was a 3-3 home draw with Old Bealonians. Five minutes, and my knee collapsed. It was the last time I had attempted to play football so coming here to see them play was tinged with sadness.

On the way home I reflected on the fact that most of my team are under 30, making most of them at least 17 years younger than me. When I finally get fit again, would I be able to even get in the team? I watched London whizz by and looked forward to another game I was due to watch. I had been persuaded to go to Stockholm to watch the England Writers team take on their Swedish counterparts. As a regular member of this team I would normally be playing. Since the injury I have been the de facto manager for our occasional friendlies and this was our first international since the operation.

The Swedes are a strong team and rumours had it that there would be three former professional players in their squad. As it turned out there was only one, and he had only played youth team football for Inter Milan and was capped at youth level for his country! Easy peasy.

I spent the week before the game pondering my options. We have rolling substitutes so that everyone gets an even time on the pitch. This has its problems as some players think we should always just play to win. I don't think it is fair for someone to fly all that way and just get 10 mins. Anyway, I found a system, told the chaps, and also introduced a new corner routine. As it happened this was my best contribution as it led to both our goals and a half time 2-0 lead. In the second half we wilted and they equalised but we finished best and should have won.

I spent the whole weekend wishing I was playing. I found it tough being in the group and not playing but I'm glad I went. As I got the tube home from the airport with Paul he pointed out that the next time we go abroad I will be fit to play. That felt good.

The Football Season Draws to a close - Part 1

My Saturday team, Mayfield Athletic 3rd XI, had their final match on Saturday 5th May. We needed to win to clinch promotion. I've been involved a little this season but it has mainly been my brother Beaky and Gavin running it. Saturday was also Beaky's last game for the club. At 50 he has decided to concentrate on his veterans' football career.

I took the tube to get to the game which was on the other side of London in Fairlop. On the way we stopped at numerous stations, about 40 in all, but it was at Mile End that my jaw hit the floor. The doors opened and on stepped the oldest living woman I have ever seen, her skin was dark brown although she would be classed as Caucasian. I was just lifting my jaw back into place when her mum followed her on. A teenage boy next to me spat out his Red Bull. They both sat down and began to discuss last night's Eastenders.

The teenager's eyes were on stalks, as if he was seeing creatures from another planet. In a way he was, they were from the last century, if not the one before. He could not drag his eyes away and eventually they noticed.

"Fancy my mum do you sonny?" He couldn't speak, she continued. "He fancies you mum."

"Wouldn't be the first."

"Nor the last. Go on mum, make his day, give 'im a kiss." The mother dragged herself up from her seat and moved towards the kid just as the train stopped again. He got up and flew out of the exit. The ladies cackled all the way to Leytonstone.

They train took ages. As I it approached Fairlop I was thinking about the Road to Recovery. Going to see this game made think of the the reason I was working so hard to get back and it is a goal I need to reach but it is frustrating because I am doing all this just to get back to normal. It is not as though I will have actually achieved anything. Thoughts turned to death but brightened as I walked into the changing room and saw the lads putting on their bright orange shirts. My cockles were warmed and I remembered again that joyous feeling you get when you are about to play game of football.

Snookered

The World Snooker Championship is on at the moment. I have been watching it since the mid 1970s. Every year I have always said that I would go up to the Crucible in Sheffield to see it live and finally I made it. With me not playing sport we decided to make some trips out and Sheffield was one of the first we booked.

A few months ago I had made the same trip up North. On that occasion it was to see an Ibsen play at the theatre, I was rather more excited about seeing the boys on the baize.

As we walked up to the famous old theatre I suddenly got overly excited and started shaking a bit, Katie had to calm me down as I rushed us through into our seats. The lights went down, a hush descended, play began, and then seemingly instantly it was over. Three hours, eight frames, whizzed by like a thundering, whispering train. The Ibsen had been a similar length but that had felt like days compared to this. The true drama of real live sport can not be beaten. I loved every minute of it, and then loved it even more when we went again in the evening. Brilliant.

Back on the treadmill down at the gym I have begun to ramp up the pressure. Each day I am increasing the speed a little, and upping the level of difficulty. My leg is getting stronger, and the thigh muscle is returning. The stats show it and my walking shows it. I can now leg press over 100 kilos, which is past the target set by the hospital before I can go running again. Next ACL circuit training should see me given the thumbs up.

After going to the gym for nearly two months I only just noticed that the sports hall is often used by the local Muslim community for prayers. They take it over, lay down their prayer mats and get down to it. I stuck my head round the door the other day to see what was going on. It wasn't full, but there was a good old crowd. My peep coincided with the end of prayers and so I got spied spying. I thought they'd be annoyed but to my surprise they invited me in. It seems that no one else who uses the gym as a gym has ever shown any interest in them. We chatted happily for a few minutes before I bade them farewell. As I left, they were laughing and joking and seemed to be a jolly bunch.

My other major excitement recently has been my NHS health check. They take blood, do blood pressure, weigh you, measure your waist and so on. The results came and were all ok, but I decided to visit my GP to discuss them. The real reason I arranged this appointment was because Katie thinks I have alzheimers and she finally convinced me to ask the doctor to test me.

I was crapping myself with the knowledge that if I failed my life would suddenly take a dramatic turn for the worse. It was worse than a-levels, degree, and driving test all at once.

"I'm going to tell you a name and address, repeat them back to me and later on I will ask you to repeat them again." Oh shit!! "John Brown, 42 High Street, Kensington." I repeated the details back, phew. "Now I want you to draw a clock face, with the hands at ten past eleven."

How can I do that and remember the address? If they had taken my pulse at this point I'd have been in the danger zone. Suddenly I found it impossible to draw a clock face, I concentrated as hard as I could, all the while trying to retain the address. Clock face drawn and presented, I was ready to announce the name and address but no.

"Now tell me two stories that have been in the news this week." I managed these quite easily, hoping, praying I would now be allowed to do the address. "Just tell me a bit more about that second story." I was sweating. Don't look back at it, can you repeat the address?

Finally, just when I thought my head would pop he asked for the address.

"John Brown, 42 High..." I paused, was it street or road? Aaaaahhhhhhhhh! Go for street. Yes it's street..."42 High Street, Kensington."

Phew. I nearly died, my head nearly exploded but I managed it. The upshot being that..."You don't have alzheimers. Tell your wife you're just not listening or concentrating when she talks to you."

"Maybe it would be better if I just said I had alzheimers!" He chuckled, not the first time he's heard that joke I'll warrant.

The 25% Moment.

And suddenly I'm a quarter of the way through. Seems a little strange that I now only have to go through what I have been through already three more times. This is doable.

An interesting day today started with an audition.

Whilst I was waiting to go in a couple of the receptionists were rooting through the cupboard. All this bending apparently revealed the lower back tattoo of one to the other.

"Ooh, I like your tattoo."

"Thanks."

"What does it mean?"

"Having endured the pain."  Time for a joke methinks and so I chip in.

"Having endured the pain of having a tattoo done?" No one laughs. Tattoo girl replies with utter contempt...

"Actually, having endured the pain of having two back spurs removed, from which I was almost paralysed."

I should have left it but if you've been followed these you'll know I can't. "So having endured the pain of having a couple of back spurs removed you decided to have a tattoo in the place where you'd had the back problem."

"Do you know anything, about anything?"

Fortunately at this point it was my turn to go in. Not the best preparation for an audition.

At the gym, later, I was cycling away when my eye caught some movement to my left. I glanced over, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rather old bloke also cycling. He'd obviously let himself go and was not exactly an oil painting. He looked tired and sweaty. I looked away and thanked my lucky stars I didn't look as bad as him. A moment later I couldn't stop myself having another look. I wanted to see if he was peddling as quick as me. I look over and it was only at this point that I realised I had been looking at the mirror.


A few people have asked me if I made up the word Crepitus? Of course not. If I could make up words that good I wouldn't be wasting my time doing anything else. Although having said that my brothers and I did make up a word which is brilliant. I spell it 'Chuppetting'. It is pronounced with a good bit of phlegm at the start as though you are clearing your throat. It is the word we use for leaving a football ground when you are trying to go quickly but you don't want to seem like you're running. 

Anyway the Crepitus is loud this week, I can hear it when I walk up the stairs and when I move my leg at night. It sounds like it all needs oiling. I think all the strengthening work is great but I'll be most pleased when I can't hear my knee anymore.