Dancing on ice

Towards the end of January we had freezing fog which coated every surface with ice.  I walked out of the door one morning, heading off to work, and slipped at the top of a step.  I managed to just about stay on my feet by doing a violent pirouette on my right leg.

As I drove off to work, I was aware of a bit of a twinge in my right knee. Six hours later, I was hobbling around the office.  Since then, I've been seesawing between feeling OK and being in despair at the chronic ache from my knee.  Sitting seems to be bad news but spending the day doing stuff in the garden is fine (I did this after a respectable 18:26 parkrun, my first fast run for almost a month).

Last Thursday I went to see Viv, who confirmed that it was muscle damage (the quadriceps) and reminded me how chronically tight these quads are.  (I know; when I kneel down there's a big air gap between my feet and my bottom.)  She applied the Elbow of Death which left me gasping a bit.  The upshot was that on Saturday I ran a respectable parkrun (18:26) and felt OK... and I'm starting to believe that I might be OK for the Winchester 10k this weekend and the Berkhamsted half marathon a week later.

Viv also gave me my first taste of muscle activation.  I haven't fully understood the logic of this yet, but I'm very intrigued.  It seems that various muscles work much better when you knead particular spots that aren't obviously connected.  The before-and-after effects are dramatically different - I was amazed how much more power I had after a bit of uncomfortable prodding.  Take a look at the video below and sympathise with the poor guy getting the head treatment that bizarrely makes his legs stronger.

So fingers crossed for the weeks ahead.  In the meantime I'm putting frozen peas on my kneee each evening and wincing as I prod behind my ears.