Day 47 – Still Game.

Well, hello again in the Blogosphere.
Rumours of my final demise are unfounded, (only just) after all it’s only pain – it will stop eventually…
It’s been an interesting 3 days.
Physio, sleep, drugs, physio, eat, physio, ice, physio…and put beer between all of those items.
Me and bikes never did get on very well and it’s no surprise that a stupid mistake on my mtb nearly cost me the whole run. Early indications seem to imply large and painful bruising to the whole left patella, and hopefully nothing more sinister underneath.
After the wonderful Alison Robb of Nethy worked on my leg for 3 sessions and with lots of ice and rest, I very tentatively got on my road bike this morning in Strontian, with the Right Horrible Al Campell as my domestique.
It was make or break as I turned the pedals for the first time, and thankfully the knee was not too painful. The next test was 2 miles later on the first climb in road and even under stress the joint held its own, albeit very slowly in the small rings. After warming up we got a steady crawl up the hill and enjoyed the whizz down the far side to the east foot of Garbh Bheinn, one of my favourite Scottish mountains.
The weather looked good with broken high clouds, and with the good company of Brenda, Big Al, Isobel Coombs, Charlie Campbell and sister June, with the indomitable Stella as back up, we enjoyed a slow but steady climb up the steep slopes with only one small shower, but otherwise warm all the way up. My defection to the use of walking poles or “cheating sticks” is only temporary, whilst the knee (hopefully) settles down again, but there is no doubt they helped take the weight off on the way up, but more importantly on the way down. My biggest worry about using sticks is that they make me go so slow it even made Al Campbell look fast! It was fantastic to get the views of those spectacular northern crags and then from the summit for lunch. A slow but steady stick assisted descent got us back to the van with the knee sore but not progressively so. Then it was into Loch Linnhe for 20 minutes to chill the legs down whilst Al & Isobel took the full plunge!! Tea, buns & beer were enjoyed in the van away from the ever increasing midge population before the usual frustrations of try to blog-on with poor connection signal.
Tomorrow I plan to try and get into it properly again by doing the other 6 tops to the north, leading to Callop – I reckon my knee only needs a bit of exercise now…