Walking is like jabbing hot needles in my foot

Oh joy - I think the blog title says it all really.

Dad came round and picked me up this afternoon (seriously - I have to start getting up, showered and dressed before 3pm - this is becoming a bad habit) and we swung by the community hospital's physio dept to go collect my exercise sheet. The bad news is that I'm limping before I've even got down the stairs of our block of flats. Ouch - even with Dad chauffeuring this is going to be a loooooong trip out.

Locate physio dept in the little mini-hospital, collect instructions and ask about the actual appointment. Oh good - there's a waiting list and by the sound of it, it might actually be weeks before I get an appointment - they'll let me know, and in the meantime I need to do the exercises on the sheets I've been given.

Limp back out to the car - mild burning sensation in my ankle, but it's doable. Next stop supermarket - because after over a week my fridge is severely depleted, even with everyone's donations of the last couple of days. Eeeeek - trawling round the supermarket is a serious case of self-inflicting pain on myself, but has to be done. Like hundreds of hot needles all around the ankle bone with every step, and my calf muscle is gradually reaching the approximate tension of your average granite rock. Nice. On the upside, I get a voicemail whilst I'm at the checkout to say that the physio dept have had a spot free up next week so they can fit me in then - yay!! Gratefully slumped back into the car when it was finished, and then just one final stop to the post office. Still limping.

Luckily, my Dad's a sweetie and helped me carry all my shopping up to the flat. By which I mean, he grabbed pretty much all of it, and left me to carry a bunch of flowers and a roll of bubble wrap. Gotta love Dads!

Anyway, I'm a glutton for punishment, and doing zero exercise is seriously driving me demented, so I girded my loins (well, braced myself for further ankle pain - my loins don't have a lot to do with that really!), grabbed my swim stuff and limped / shuffled off to the gym for a gentle swim. I figured if weight-bearing exercise is banned then floating around in the pool should be ok.

Seriously - my gym is about a 4 min walk down the road, and I wasn't convinced I was going to make it. How bad is that??? Had to sit and have a rest in the changing rooms before I headed for the pool. The pool was nice (a bit chilly today though!), but not quite as therapeutic as I'd hoped, as my ankle still felt cramp-y. On the other hand it didn't make it any worse, so I just spent a very gentle 25 mins doing some very slow lengths and then resting and rotating my ankle. 20 lengths. It was ok. I could probably have done more, but didn't want to push it, so I hopped / shuffled out and treated myself to 5 mins in the sauna instead.

Hunted down Mark, the trainer who's running the challenge for the next 6 weeks, to reassure him that I am still alive, still participating and have started tracking and will be along on Sunday. We discussed alternative training for the bits I can't do, but he said it won't really hot up til week 2 or so, so fingers crossed I'll be a bit more back on the ball by then. The first session on Sunday is going to be circuits - I'll go along and see what I can do and just cut out what I can't, like the 1 min step test. We'll work around it.

I needed veggies this evening, so I've cooked up a batch of leek and potato soup and finished off the crusty bread with it. Nice.