Preparation, pulled muscle and pain

The preparation for walking the Camino Frances has suffered a major setback.

I have been playing walking football regularly for a couple of years and greatly enjoy it - I get a real buzz from my successes (especially goals) and enjoy the banter; it might not quite be the real thing but most of the differences are improvements. However, my participation on Monday went less well than usual. As I turned tightly and stretched for the ball, a lightning strike of pain hit my calf and I tumbled to the ground (probably slightly overdoing it). Ten seconds of 'I'll just run it off' was enough and I retired from the fray - though I noticed that my absence seemed to make little difference to my team's level of success. Five days later, the calf still hurts.

But I am going anyway and will now be limping the Camino rather than walking it. Since I understand that most people limp much of the way, whether because of blisters or sore joints, I could argue that I am now even better prepared than anyone else!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favourite Walks - A Walk through Bowood

I recently put together instructions for a local walk for publication in the parish magazine and on the Calne Without parish council website. For the tiny minority of readers of my blog who might visit the local area, here it is. If you read it here and intend to do the walk, tea and biscuits at mine are an extra reward. Circular 6 mile walk, mainly through Bowood Estate  This walk just about allows you to stay within the boundaries of Calne Without but stretches your legs and includes some lovely countryside, especially on the path through Bowood. It is just over 6 miles (nearly 7 if you start from the Lansdowne Arms).   1a Start at the Black Dog Inn/Gurkha Baynjan Restaurant on the A4 (now a fine Nepalese restaurant but still with a public bar), where there is ample car parking and an opportunity for a pre-walk coffee or a post-walk pint, or, for locals, start from your own home.   1b It is also possible, and perhaps more appropriate given the amount of Lansdo...
Read more

Don't Jump Off the Roof, Dad

I want to die with the little dignity I have intact.  I have become increasingly frustrated by the sober and respectful debate about assisted dying. While everyone seems to be acting from the best possible motives (at least by their own lights), the issue that concerns me and so many of my friends and acquaintances is being ignored. My greatest fear – and it is shared by so many old people – is not that I die in pain from an incurable illness and suffer for months. That’s an awful prospect but only relatively rarely does it become a reality. My greatest fear is that I live without dignity, an incontinent, gibbering burden on my nearest and dearest. That a very real prospect for many of us. For many of those who have witnessed a slide into such a status for those they loved and respected, that fear is close to terror. The assisted dying debate proponents dare not extend their argument because their perceived weakness is ‘the slippery slope’. As a result, a very real issue is bei...
Read more

Batty Regulation

We’ve got bats and liked them, until the regulations made us regret our tolerance of them as the bills and complications mounted. Sitting with a glass of wine in our small courtyard in Wiltshire and watching the bats swoop from their nesting places was a real pleasure. We’d even drag friends out from summer dinners to watch the acrobats in action. We liked the bats. But now I fear that our experience has left everyone who has heard our tale determined to eradicate any bats they find and to tell nobody. That’s not good for conservation and it’s all down to an obsessive over-regulation that puts the interests of bats over those of humans and scarcely compromises at all. When we bought our house 25 years ago, we knew that one part of the property had bats in it, probably as a resting spot for Greater Horseshoe. When we carried out some conversion work on that part of the building, we abided by the restrictions that then applied - restricting work to the winter months. Quite volunt...
Read more