Not Moving House

Well, it turns out that our house really is as lovely as we always thought it was.  This discovery has had two consequences.  The first is that other people want to buy it, and as a result of that we are now "sold subject to contract", which sounds much more final than it really is, because we aren't going to contract anything until we have found somewhere we want to move to.  The second is that it's proving impossible (so far) to find somewhere we want to move to. Of course, we are constrained by the necessity of being close to Heavitree for high-efficiency grandparenting, and by the requirement that we can park our new camper van on the drive (which rules out any new developments, no matter how pleasant they may be otherwise).  And by the problem that our lovely house is - well, rather lovely, so the bar is set very high.  Thus, my feeble lifetime ambition to have a decent double garage is looking as far away as ever, and we are revisiting the idea of building up (and converting our current bedroom, which is adjacent to the garage, into the workshop).  Another massive building project eh?  What fun.

Meanwhile my running activities have been sadly curtailed by injury.  About three months ago I started to get a little bit of pain in my right ankle when I ran.  It had a peculiar pattern, which was that it hurt when I started running, got less painful while running, and then hurt again when I stopped.  It didn't seem too bad though, so I didn't pay much attention.

Some time after this I thought it was about time I bought some proper shoes to replace the ancient trainers I had been using, so I went to a proper running shop and trotted on their running machine while they took video of my gait to identify the correct shoe.  I accepted their diagnosis of overpronation, especially in my right foot, and happily shelled out £120 for a pair of Brooks Ravenna 8 "stability" shoes in a rather fetching bright blue colour.  I didn't buy any of the tights they had on offer at similar prices though.

Brooks Ravenna 8 high performance
"stability" specialised running shoe
in rather fetching bright blue

Ancient trainer

Despite all this, the pains got gently worse until I was more or less hobbling down the road for the first 50 yards of each run.  They also became more noticeable when I wasn't running.  I did some research and started resting my ankle by not running at all.  Six weeks later, nothing had improved very much, so I went to an osteopath credited with almost miraculous powers by the lovely Jackie.  Although he was a very amiable chap, his gentle ministrations didn't seem to make any difference at all.  He thought I might need two or three visits at two or three week intervals (at about £50 a pop) - somewhat cynically, I do wonder whether his strategy might be to be pleasantly soothing while waiting for it to heal itself.  Anyway, my next stop was a sports physiotherapist, who came highly recommended by the lovely Jackie's kick-boxing trainer.  (I know, that sounds much more interesting than my ankle, but this is my blog after all.  I also know you shouldn't put whole sentences, let alone whole paragraphs, in parentheses; but seems to me that it's the only way to represent what I mean, which is that this whole thing is a complete side-line to the main thrust of the piece.  Anyway, you don't mind, do you?)  The physio was a fine Scottish chap who poked and prodded a bit, and had me walk and run up and down and do squats and so on, and diagnosed probable anterior tibial tendonitis.  He gave me a few exercises which he thought might possibly help, and lightened my wallet by £58.  He also said that I should see a podiatrist about what to do next, and was so very kind as to recommend one.

And so I went to see the podiatrist, who turned out to be a charming lady who did loads of prodding, poking, squats, running, walking, one-legged toe-stands and other esoteric stuff before concluding  that although I might have a tiny bit of anterior tibial tendonitis, essentially my feet are in almost tip top condition for running on, and that probably, those stability shoes were my only real problem.  I should definitely ditch them and buy some neutral shoes instead, because the whole concept of stability shoes is flawed non-science and isn't supported by any actual evidence.  Of course, I was thrilled get this news - and all for a bargain price of £80 for the session!

So, almost back to square one, after an outlay of £308, I begin to research running shoes again.  I turns out that:

• Brooks Ravenna 8's are only very slightly "stability" shoes anyway, so maybe they aren't really as much of a problem as the podiatrist thought.
• You can buy them on line for about £60.

Sigh.  I think I'll go back to my ancient trainers and see what happens.  Meanwhile, this running lark is definitely proving more expensive than I expected!