Thursday 3 February 2011

Ankle progress

It's been just over 8 months since I had 2 metal screws inserted into the broken medial malleolus bone in my ankle. Such has been the quality of my recovery that I sometimes forget that I ever fell off my bike that hot May day.

With hindsight, running from Edinburgh to Newcastle last November seems like it was a turning point in my recovery. Since that 107 mile effort over 3 days, I seem to have regained the full range and flexibility in my ankle. I was told in August, that that may not happen. I was also told in A&E last May to "forget all about the run". Thankfully, with a careful and measured period of rehab, there's no forgetting here that I'll be running coast to coast across the USA in 86 days time.

Regular readers will remember that bookmakers Paddy Power made a donation to the 2 charities and my right ankle is now known as "The Paddy Power Bionic Ankle".

The ankle has certainly been put through it's paces recently with plenty of hills and a mixture of terrain. In October, due to a lack of flexibility, hills caused me a bit of a problem. Now, though, with a full range of movement things are very much back to normal.

As an added bonus, last month I walked through a security metal detector at the US Embassy and I didn't set it off! Brilliant!