Today I am 3. And in Rio de Janeiro.

It's June 21 which means it's my other birthday. Three years ago I was newly bashed-up in Lancaster hospital.

But today, three years on, I am in Rio de Janeiro! We are visiting Rebecca's parents who now live here on account of her Dad's job. Today is our first day here, and we went to Copacabana to see the beach. It's midwinter here of course with it being the southern hemisphere, but midwinter here is about 28 degrees so it's better than our summer! The beach is so long and the sand so lovely. People come along all the time trying to sell you their wares which is, for the moment, quite entertaining. I know about 50 words of Portuguese which I learned on the plane here thanks to a cool little word learning game on KLM's in-flight entertainment system.

My foot is very sore still, since the ankle manipulating episode from a few weeks ago. Something has changed, because it really hurts at the moment! But I'm sure it will go away eventually and hopefully it'll be the better for it. Walking bare-foot on the sand will, I think, have been good for it. No doubt I'll get a few more opportunities for that while I'm here.

There have been some riots here in Rio over the last few days, but happily they are not right outside where we are staying. These people probably do have something to demonstrate about, but I still don't want to get caught up in it, and I'm sure Mum doesn't want me to either!

I miss the sea, I think where we live at the moment, while lovely, is too far from the coast. Rebecca asked if Copacabana was like Blackpool for the Brazilians :) I read in my Lonely Planet book the five page condensed history of Rio which is quite colourful making me want to learn more about the colonial past of the city and country. It is certainly reflected in the architecture, there are some beautiful buildings here, sandwiched in between the much more modern concrete.

We have a whole bunch of other sights to see while we're here, I will blog about some of them as we go along.

The Non-linear Path of Physical Recovery

Wow it's been a long time since I wrote here! Nearly 6 months! Time flies.

Since then I've done some biking, though not as much as I would have liked, or as I had planned to in fact. I've been back for a couple of X-rays, which showed little change really - you can see a bit of the gap filling in, but only if you squint at it. The bone hasn't moved though, so it's probably fair to say that the tibia is stable now.

There's still some frustrating setbacks happening though, mostly with my ankle and foot. It seems like you slowly go some way forward and then quickly come a way back again. The other week I manipulated my ankle joint again - manipulated is what they call it where you move a joint that hasn't moved for a long time basically further than you've moved it before. It takes a lot of force, like a stumble or something. Well, it takes more force the more often it happens, if you see what I mean. In the long term these manipulations are good because you are increasing the range of movement of your joints, but in the short term they are incredibly painful :(

Thus is was that in May I was very happy that I had managed to be off crutches for 6 weeks - I had even uttered the fate-tempting phrase "I'm off crutches now" - I did wait 6 whole weeks before saying that, and then a week later I was back on two crutches again! Last week I couldn't really walk, and depressing though it was I stayed at home all week - I can work at home but it's not really the same. Cabin fever sets in. Now I can just about manage hobbling around the house and down to the shop, but it's really frustrating because 2 weeks ago I was even starting to walk without really thinking about it. That's something that I now know you really take for granted, not having to think about every step and how much it's going to hurt or what angle the pavement is at or being careful to put your heel down first etc etc. 

Anyway I know it'll come back, and I know it'll come back better than it was before, but you have to go through these miserable steps backward to go forward again. I've done this to my ankle once before, it swelled up in exactly the same way, hurt exactly as much, and came back better. I did it to my foot too, a massive 'crack!' when I was hobbling up a steep street - hurt like anything for a month, then got better and my foot was springier, all good.

Biking: managed to do 50 miles on the road bike in early May, mostly flat but with a really hilly bit about three quarters of the way through to test the thighs. Hard work but managed it. The other day I went and did 3 miles on my mountain bike and found it very difficult. Non-linear. My physio says biking will be good for my ankle at the moment, might help it loosen up and the swelling go down. I have realised that I have to be more serious about my exercises, because they will make it harder for me to hurt myself! Didn't think of that before, but I have now, so at least I'm learning.

I'm supposed to figure out and write down my goals (short, mid and long-term) for my physical recovery this week, before my next appointment on Thursday. When I've done that I'll post them on here! I'd like to start swimming again too - now I think I could make it to the pool without needing help or crutches, I should go and try it - I'm sure that would help.

When I can step back from the fact that it's my leg and ankle and foot and I'm connected to them 24/7, I can see that things are getting better, and that the non-linear nature of the recovery is actually quite interesting in it's own way. However sometimes it is not easy to be so detached and then you're thinking the usual "why me?" or "what did I do to deserve this?". I need to stay in control of that because it makes it worse. Before this latest setback I was starting to believe that hiking might be possible again, in fact I was almost ready to try it, and the biking, while not as frequent as I had imagined it would be, was going in the right direction. I'll get back there, I know. But it is hard to construct a plan or put times to goals when you don't know and can't predict these manipulations, setbacks. It feels a bit like a process where on a given day there's an x% chance that there will be a setback. That starts me thinking whether that's not actually always the case - you could hurt yourself any day, which would set you back. I guess when you're in the middle of a recovery like I am that chance must be greater, or you have to do less to encounter one. So making a plan like "I'm going to do a 100 mile ride by July" is, I think, a good thing, but it almost certainly has to be tempered by the knowledge that July might have to change to be August or September.

People were saying to me the other week that I'd "overdone it" - that's my Mum's favourite way of putting it. Well, if going on my mountain bike and having to put my foot down, or walking up a street or going to the shop is overdoing it - guilty! But there isn't another way, I don't hurt myself on purpose. 

It'll be 3 years soon.

Mac super slow and annoying?

Just a quick post.. recently my desktop and laptop Macs have become so irritating to use - every time I tried to do anything it seemed like it would freeze and give me the spinning beach ball of doom for ages. Really computer-smashingly annoying.

BUT! The fixes I found on this web page... www.whyismymacsoslow.net have really worked and fixed them both back to useable computer status. I ignored the preferences fix but did the repair permissions and delete cache fixes. Worked like a charm!

Targets

Today I went out and made my cycling target for the week, which was 30 miles. This month I'm aiming for 100, which looks possible. What I'm trying to do at the moment is build up a selection of routes which I can come back to in the coming months to monitor progress. I've been looking back over my riding history from 2007 - 2010, and I am quite surprised how infrequently I repeated a route! There are a couple which I can use to see some progress with my fitness, but it would of course be easier if there was at least one route I did regularly with the same equipment.

Likewise there aren't many routes from previously that I can use now to gauge where I am compared to then. On the road bike, many of the routes I did before are too long or go up roads I don't think I could muscle my way up at the moment. On the mountain bike, many of the routes go on trails that I don't feel my ankle would like very much at the moment. Although I could try some of them, I suppose.

Hence why I'm trying to be more systematic now. I guess before I was just riding purely for fun, with no specific target in mind, whereas now I want to get back to being able to do the longer rides, races and cyclosportives I feel I need some kind of programme.



Last week I did however repeat a route that I did once before, on February 15 2009. This was the Chinley Loop, out from the house via Thornsett, left at Birch Vale, right at Hayfield, over Peep O' Day, right into Chinley, through Buxworth, onto the A6 and home. It's 11.7 miles. In 2009, moving time was 50 minutes, last week it was 1h 3m. Most of the difference was in the climb up to Peep O' Day, which isn't that bad really, but I'm quite unfit at the moment! It is quite a long steady climb, good for training. In 2009 my average heart rate for this ride was 168, last week it was 177. I've been doing a bit of investigating into this with my historical data, and it definitely seems that my average heart rate goes down when I've been training. I guess this is all well-known stuff to coaches and so on, but I found it quite fascinating to be looking at that in my own data. The program I use to record my rides, myTourbook, lets you see a histogram of your heart rate with time for each ride, colour-coded by heart rate zone. So I can compare my heart rate in zones between these two rides:

Last week.

Compare with 2009.

On the face of it they look quite similar, but if you look at the distribution through the zones, you see that in 2009 the percentage of the ride I spent in zones 3:4:5 was about 21:43:29. Last week it was 4:49:45. That looks quite significant to me. Hopefully I'll be able to revisit this route over the next few months and compare some more!

Back in the Saddle

So far this week I've ridden 24 miles in two rides. Last week I did one ride of 12 miles. This week my target is to do 30 miles and this month, 100. The weather in December was really awful - lots of rain - so I didn't get out much. But now it feels like the training has started properly. I'm really unfit of course - it feels like there's nothing in my thighs at all, especially the left one. The right one I get a burn in quite quickly, but so far I haven't felt much in the left. I'm swapping between my road bike and my newly modified mountain bike, depending on what route I choose to do. There are some hills around here which I doubt I could get up on my road bike at the moment!

With these leggings on you can barely tell there's been anything wrong!

It's been snowing this week and is trying to lay down a covering right now but hopefully I'll be able to complete my weekly target tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning with a short-ish ride. I'm trying to establish some routes that I can come back to every month to see any improvements.
My physio thinks I'm crazy because I like measuring and recording everything. But she is very good - I'm seeing her once a week now and she's working mostly on my foot, ankle and calf, trying to get some mobility back in my ankle and loosening up the muscles in my foot and calf, which apparently have been very very knotted up. It is really helping - I always feel much looser and better after my appointment there. I guess I'll be seeing her for the forseeable future!
At the moment I can readily believe that I will get back to where I was before on the bike. There's an issue with my ankle - every time I change gear or go over any kind of bump, it hurts. So I think proper off-road riding is off the cards for the time being. After the rides my ankle is very sore and I am hobbling around worse than usual for the next day, but I hope that will subside and in any case I can tolerate that if it means I can ride properly again. It will take time, but I can see building up the strength in my quads and calves and achieving my target of being able to do a 'proper' ride of 90 miles or so around the Peak District by June/July. Then the plan will be to enter the Bradley Wiggins Sportive on August 18, for my return to 'competition'.



Where I will end up walking-wise though, I really can't say. I knew a long time ago that I'd be cycling again way before I was able to walk, and so it is proving. I can manage a short walk to the shops without crutches, but by the time I'm back my walking pattern has deteriorated a lot because of fatigue. It's going to take a long time and a lot of work before I can go up Kinder Scout again unaided... Right now, weather not-withstanding, I could probably take the Glossop bus up onto the hill and walk across the moor with one stick. I should do that soon because I really miss the moors! Maybe I should look into getting a walking pole - something I swore I'd never ever have, but now maybe it would help. Or I could get a more traditional walking stick - how cool would I look then?!

First bike ride for 895 days.

OK, today I had to wait for some Christmas presents to be delivered, but the plan was, weather and light permitting, to get out and ride. Finally.

By two o'clock all my parcels had arrived, so I quickly put my lycra on :) and got myself sorted out, water bottle etc. gps, heart rate monitor, pumped up bike tyres to about 90 psi, basic toolkit in pocket just in case, phone, keys, looked at the roads - a bit damp but looking OK - and, nervously, I went.

After one failed attempt to clip my right foot in (it's been a long time!) I was riding my bike down the road outside the house. It's like riding a bike, you never forget. I had thought carefully about this ride. Going right out of the house means there's a flat bit for a few hundred metres. All other directions are a hill. So I gave myself 30 seconds for something to go wrong and it still be flat. So far so good. Nothing went wrong. Felt very strange after all this time. I was worried something on my bike would snap or the tyre would burst or something else equally unlikely was going to happen. It didn't. After the few hundred metres the road goes down a bit so no pedalling required - again, good. At the bottom it's flat again for a bit, maybe 400m, then there's a hill. A molehill, not worth speaking about.

As soon as I started up it, I knew my plan wasn't going to work for this ride. This hill suddenly felt like a major climb. I never really noticed it much before, sort of a warm up before the ride starts properly after the first few miles. Oh dear. Are my legs really that weak? Is that really the lowest gear on my bike? It used to go lower than that! No, it didn't. Lots of things have changed, but the gear ratios on my bike are still the same.

After that hill, there's another downhill section and then another uphill, perhaps not as steep as the first, and certainly another that I'd never really noticed, but I did today! At the top of that, at Birch Vale, the road meets the Hayfield road, I turned left. This bit is flat until the junction with the Glossop - Chinley road. There I had planned to go right and go over the hill to Chinley. That was the hill I talked about last time. What actually happened was I had a rest. I'd known since the first uphill that this wasn't going to be a good idea. When I stopped and unclipped and put my feet down, my legs were feeling so weak like they might give way :(

I dismounted (also difficult as it happens), and walked back across the road. I decided to go back exactly the way I came. The Chinley loop, for which I have pre-accident data, will have to wait a bit yet. Tijl and everyone was right - it was too much for the first ride. I hate being wrong. I hate failing, not achieving what I set out to do.

I retraced my steps along the Hayfield road - I could've gone straight on and back to New Mills going up Union Road, but that's a climb too, and it's the town's main street so there would be people around to witness my pathetic struggle in the granny gear. So I went back the back way, to avoid being seen as much as possible.

It didn't seem quite as bad on the way back, possibly I had resigned myself to just going slowly and pacing myself up the 'climbs' like I would normally have done on something much more severe. It worked, but when I got to the front door I had to wait a few minutes before I dared swing my left leg over the saddle to get off. Courage needed. You won't fall. But it feels like I might. You won't. Just do it.

What have I learned? It's going to be hard mentally as well as physically. I know what I could do. I just can't do it now. Didn't I know it was going to be hard mentally? Yes I think so, but I honestly thought I'd set a realistic goal today. Now I see I hadn't. I never thought I my legs could feel so weak on a bike as that. 

I was also quite nervous about being clipped in and generally handling the bike. I put this down to physical weakness as well as lack of even a shred of specific fitness. The more I get out on it now, the more that will return I'm sure.

Positives? Absolutely. 2012 will have bike miles! After 895 days, I did 5.6 miles.

Not much mechanical pain, at least not that I could notice next to all the pain from lack of muscle and fitness. Ankle not moving doesn't seem to cause much problem. I didn't try to stand up on the pedals going up the hills - I think that would've finished me off completely, my legs just didn't feel strong enough for that.

Will my strength for this recover. Of course it will. I just needed to get out the first time and set a benchmark for my mind and my body. On the way back I think my body was already starting to remember how to suffer and where to get the extra energy from. Or maybe I just think that because I've relaxed and recovered a bit now...

I also got to post a ride on Strava, which I've been dying to do - and I see there are some segments of even the short ride I did today which other people have times on. Amazingly, I haven't posted the lowest time on any of the three of them that are there! Almost in one case (78th out of 81) but look, I haven't ridden my bike for 29 months. Oh, and did I mention I almost lost my leg?

Look for yourself. The mechanical bone/tissue rebuild may be over, the rebuild of everything else starts here.

This Week's X-rays etc.

This week has been a bit major to say the least. I had three appointments: one with the consultant at Preston on Wednesday, one with a specialist in Sheffield on Thursday, and my physio appointment on Friday. One of the things that's kind of annoying is all the time something like this can take out of your life - I mean, each of those appointments took at least half a working day out. This is time I won't get back....

Anyway, on Wednesday I went to see my consultant in Preston - it's actually a paediatric clinic but he said I could pretend to be a child for the day.. This is to fit in with my lecturing, normally I'd go on Monday to the fracture clinic, but they've always been quite nice and flexible with me to let me have it affect my job as little as possible. The nurse in the clinic said she wanted no tantrums from me when I said I was going to pretend to be a child! Pretend! As if - I am a child. Mostly. 

So over the last few weeks I've been convincing myself alternately that my leg wasn't bending again, and that it was. This x-ray would provide the proof one way or the other. Thankfully, it shows that my tibia is straight as an arrow! This is good! I've been fully weight-bearing as much as possible on it for 3 weeks since the frame was removed. Of course the struts were unlocked for something like 6 weeks already, so really it's more like 9 weeks when it could've bent. But this shows it hasn't.

Top view. No bend in tibia.Yippee!

Side view - the angle in this plane is not as important, but it's still pretty straight anyway.

OK, so, it looks like it worked :) What a relief! Now I can push as much as I want / can. I don't have to go back to see my consultant now for 3 months - until March 4 2013. This is a bit like a semi-discharge compared to what I've been used to for the last 29 months!

You can see from the top view that there is an illusion now of it being bent - there is much more of a taper of the soft tissue on the outside than the inside. It looks bent. It isn't.

I asked about driving. No problem, he said, if I feel like I can do an emergency stop, everything's OK. I do. So I will have a little practice in Mum's car next weekend, and then we're all good for renting a car at Christmas. This will make Rebecca's life then much more enjoyable - and mine too :) Freedom!

When I wake up, it looks a lot less swollen :)
Possibly it's shorter too, but hey. You can't have it all (so I'm told).

I also got some tubi-grip to put around it so that maybe the swelling will go down quicker. That's good too. When my consultant said 3 months, I think I knew that deep down, but still, it meant saying thank you for the time being and that is a bit hard because thank you just doesn't seem to cover it. He said he thought it was good that in the end they had fixed it so that I hadn't lost my leg, and that it looked like from that point of view it was a success. I know it's their jobs, but really, how can you repay something like that?

Next, Sheffield on Thursday. There is a whole side of this accident that I haven't spoken about in my blog - the claim against the insurance company. For obvious reasons I don't want to go too much into it yet because it's ongoing, but my visit to the specialist in Sheffield was at the behest of the insurance company. It passed off without incident - the guy was nice, possibly a (retired?) orthopaedic consultant. He asked a lot of the usual questions which I don't really like going over again but I've been over it so many times now with so many people I could practically do it in my sleep. He measured up all of my scars, asked about pain etc. and how it's affected my life. My file is massive! No doubt that's copies of all my medical records. One day I will write up my thoughts on all this side of it.

On Friday I had physiotherapy at Stepping Hill. My physio was pleased to see me amble in almost without crutch. I explained I was showing off because I was there, but he said you have to be able to do it to show off. I guess that's right. We went through my stretches and step exercises, which have got easier over the last fortnight to be fair, especially stepping up backwards leading with my left leg. Now I have sideways step ups to do, and heel dips and raises over the edge of the step. They are hard on my calves.

We talked about the motion in my ankle. He said realistically it was unlikely I'll recover much more than I've got at the moment. I have no fibula anymore (you can see the wreckage of it in my first x-ray above) so he thinks it is possible that my ankle has fused to compensate for the lack of stability that brings. I do have some plantar flexion, but hardly any dorsi flexion. Cycling wise it shouldn't matter too much - I am mildly concerned about balance on the mountain bike since some of that comes from dropping your heels a bit, but we'll see about that later on. Of course, I can keep working on it to see if it will loosen up a bit, but I guess he was telling me not to be too hopeful. Maybe I knew that deep down already, it wasn't a surprise but still a disappointment. He said (as have others) that I have to look at it as a leg saved. But I suppose I want to believe it'll be back to normal eventually, mechanically. What matters I guess is what I can do with it. I intend for that to surpass what was normal before, eventually. Walking barefoot is never going to be easy now though. You don't walk around outside with no shoes on was his reply. :)

I told him that I was intending to go out on my bike on Saturday - there hadn't yet been the right combination of light, dry roads and time.

Finally, he gave me a target - off crutches completely by New Year. Now that seems ambitious to me, but what is certainly true is that I could do a lot more without. Just carry the one and use it when necessary - in two weeks when I go back, I have to be at 50% crutch usage.