A bitter pill.

Ran again this morning, the usual 8:1 reps for 30 minutes. 2.65 miles. 9:56 pace. Compression again, 5 minute walking warm up. My normal unimpressive efforts.

Calf sore after the run as usual, but nothing worse. At 11am, I'm in with the physio. She treated me for an achilles tendon problem towards the end of last year and that cleared up with several sessions of ultrasound.

This time she's looking at muscle elasticity, the area of pain, pronation, posture, stretching and warm up regime, even unevenness in leg length and probably a load more she didn't mention, or I've forgotten.

We discuss the various opinions out there on whether stretching before running is good or bad, and the value of the warm up. Also, how valuable stretching is as part of recovery from muscle damage, to promote a smoother healed muscle with less or no cell "bunching" or other such bodily disorderliness.

Given the history and my foot-flatness, she recommends a podiatrist for a specialist assessment of my lower leg bio-mechanics and how my shoes are really working out for me.

A phone call later, we have the number of a recommended local Podiatrist who does private work. The NHS waiting list for this stuff is very long and full of people with much worse problems than I have. No insurance cover on this though, bah! PPP don't recognise podiatry as an insurable branch of health care provision. Podiatric surgery, yes, gait analysis, no.

So, I need an assessment from someone more specialised, but there are general rules my physio gives me: if I must run, don't go beyond where I am now without advice. If I can, switch to something non impact for a couple of months. And get qualified podiatric advice ASAP.

To get the lay of the land, when I get home I give the Active Body Centre place recommended a call. I end up, not with a receptionist, but with the head physio who, apparently with some time on her hands, takes some of the history and gives me some general advice.

With calf injuries, the normal healing time is 6 to 8 weeks. Recurring strain or damage to the calf just extends the time it takes to heal. I should stop running, as:

- I've reached a limitation which prevents me from improving and is not helping me build general cardiovascular fitness.
- I have post run pain after every run, albeit in varying degrees.

In all likelihood, if I continue, I won't improve and will just maintain a damaged calf which will never heal properly and will not achieve the potential general fitness benefits available through other activities.

However, this general guidance needs to be tempered by the fact that this isn't a full assessment, just a verbal review of the history. My recommended choices are:

- (red pill) wait 6-8 weeks (it would be 6 wouldn't it, not 8!) and then start out running again. In the meantime, move to an alternative fitness regime: cycling; swimming; elliptical trainers at a gym, to build general fitness whilst things are left to sort themselves out without impact, assisted by regular stretching and ice. If it blows again, get professional help.
- (blue pill) get the podiatrist's assessment now, and probably end up doing the same regime, but with more knowledge about my bio-mechanics to help avoid things going wrong again.

Not one to want to wait in the dark when there is a light available, I'm going for the blue pill (I know, Neo took the red one). And I'm sure it will be bitter. I'm likely to get assessed next Tuesday - a whole hour of tests and analysis for £60.

So this might have been my last run for a while. I can tell that tales of the bike are even less interesting than my sorry tales of running, but I'll keep posting anyway and reading your blogs with envy.

Mr Stumble (soon to be Mr Wobbly).