Getting down to business

In last week's post, I mentioned that I'd started a daily run around Tamworth Castle Grounds in preparation for my sponsored 5km run next month in aid of stroke-survivor charity Different Strokes.

As is often the way with such things, of course, no sooner were the words out in the blogosphere than there was a glitch. While out running on Friday afternoon, in good weather and ideal ground conditions, I started to feel my left hamstring tighten. It began to get very much worse very quickly, so I stopped running, started to try to stretch it to ease the pain and gave up running for the weekend. With my now-weekly trip to Emily Smedley (breathebalancebeactivated.com) due on Monday, it seemed sensible to let her deal with it.

As soon as I reported it to Emily on Monday morning, she diagnosed the problem. I've been running barefoot during our sessions but wearing big, thick, training shoes to run around the Castle Grounds. The foot reacts differently when wearing such shoes so I really need to keep running barefoot, or in shoes with a very thin sole, she said.

Given that training shoes were the only thing I was planning to wear during my naked run, she has recommended such 'minimalist' shoes for the event itself. These can be expensive, but they will surely prove to be worth it.

And Monday morning's session was typically intense, but typically worthwhile. She resolved my hamstring problem with her usual agonising pushes, pulls and prods as I lay on her treatment couch ("Go on, you can scream and frighten the new kids'' she said as Derby College's induction day went on outside the physiotherapy room) before I began running up and down stairs, then moved out on to one of the football pitches. I surprised myself by managing a couple of laps before she upped the ante and had me testing my hamstring by dodging in and out of a series of cones.

Tired but quietly elated at having achieved that, I thought we were done. But no; we now began doing squats, which have previously proved tricky because my stroke-affected left side wouldn't come down far enough to reach the floor. As you can see from the accompanying photograph, this milestone has now been achieved. As I've kept saying throughout this process, there is no such word as 'can't' in stroke rehab. When the photo on the left was taken, back in June, what I achieved on Monday seemed a long way away. But now I've done it. I'm not saying that running 5km just 21 months after nearly being killed by a stroke will be easy - it won't. But thanks to the support of Emily and all the other people who have helped me on this journey (you know who you are), I feel it's within reach.

If you would like to give a donation, my fundraising page is at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MartinWarrillow