I’ve been quiet for a week or so. There’s a reason for that. I haven’t been running. After getting back on the road after the tweak to my calf muscle I was feeling quite good about the whole running thing. Then 5 days ago I was rounding up our friend’s sheep and re-tweaked the calf muscle. It was so frustrating. She sheep were being awkward sods so to cut them off and try and get them to go through the gate they were supposed to go through I needed to move quickly up hill – I pushed off my right leg, it’s been sore since.

Two days ago I went to see an osteopath. Kath has been seeing one for ages because of her dodgy back and I went to see the same one last year with a hip problem and she was fantastic. I couldn’t get an appointment with her quickly but there was someone in the same practice who could see me (Farfield House Clinic in Keighley).

I don’t like going for any kind of medical appointment. Maybe that’s a lifetime of being told by medical practitioners that I could do with losing a bit of weight (no shit! Really? I hadn’t noticed I was a bit on the porky side) so I was a little apprehensive going. I thought that the osteopath might just tell me that running really wasn’t a good idea for someone as heavy as me and that the injury was inevitable given my weight etc. I needn’t have worried. He sat me down, listened to the running story so far, had a look at my legs, checked a few things by asking me to stretch and move in particular ways and then we had a chat about what the most likely cause of the pain was: strained calf muscle. A typical but not serious running injury. Not serious as long as it is left to heal properly now – otherwise they quickly become recurring which he said was just boring. He has a point. So, after a bit of message-type work on my hamstring and calf muscle, he showed me two stretching exercises – one for calves and one for hamstrings and a strengthening exercise for calf muscles. So if you see me stopping on any steps and pushing my heel down or standing around randomly raising myself onto my toes, don’t be alarmed. I am no more mad than usual.

I am going back to see him on Tuesday at which point he will tell me when I can run again. He seemed to understand my impatience and frustration and he seemed genuinely interested in getting me back to running as soon as possible without risking further injuriy. It was certainly  a lot better than going to my doctor and coming away with a pack of neurofen and ‘don’t run for a week’ sort of advice.