Permission to run.

As instructed, I arrived at this weeks physio session 15 minutes early so I could get 15 minutes warming up on an exercise bike before hitting the treadmill. The exercise bike is more of a recumbent device, than a sit-up-and-cycle, and I had a good 20 minutes of peddling and stretching before we were ready to go.

The treadmill is a monstrous thing, and I think it gets used by some of our local soccer team who, from the "wall of fame" in the gym, frequent this place to get back into playing form. Can't be a bad place then. Once established at 6mph I asked if the machine went up to "11" - recalling Spinal Tap's amplifiers. It does in fact go up to 15 and there have been people on the machine for whom even that has not been fast enough.

6 is fine for me though.

The running session was simply to gauge any running pain in my foot, and thankfully there is non there. However, my right calf felt very tense from the start, in the same sort of way that my left calf used to do when it was warning me. After 6 or 7 minutes of mixed walk/running, we headed off to take a look at the calf and continue the ankle tendon treatment.

There is a load of bunched up muscle tension in my right calf, so she had a good dig in there to try to loosen things up, and a couple of days on, I do think it has helped.

But the best bit is that I'm OK to begin running again, with certain boundaries - a very slow start - a good warm up and no more than 15 minutes for the moment.

With a busy travelling week ahead of me, I'm hoping the hotel I'm booked into for the next couple of nights has a gym and treadmill, otherwise running might be difficult.

We'll see.

Mr Stumble.