Où suis-je (and a guide to coping with long-term injury) Written on August 12, 2011, by andys.

Nine months is a long time. It’s the magical period of time it takes to “create” a human being. Now, for a pregnant lady, that’s a long time to abstain from alcohol, steer clear of the best blue cheeses, go easy on the cappuccinos and yet at the same time, to gradually increase in size to the point that it becomes impossible to even walk to the car on the day you give birth. That’s what my wife’s been up to the last 9 months and funnily enough I’ve followed a very similar trajectory (- OK no detox for me, and I didn’t quite put on 10kg either)… For the last nine months I’ve been out of running action due to an ITB problem which kicked off just after the OMM in October 2010. And believe me, those nine months have felt very long indeed. Normally missing a single day’s training feels like I’ve forgotten to do something, a week off and I’m starting to get agitated and when you start counting in months, well, it’s a close call as to whether I’ll stay clinically sane or not. However, luckily enough, during this “spell of horror” I’ve had a few personal things to take my mind off the dreadfulness of injury-induced immobility and I’d like to offer the following four-point guide as Andy’s top tips to dealing with extended bouts of injury: 1. Move house 2. Change jobs 3. Move country 4. Have a baby. Without this simple four-point mechanism I would almost certainly not have survived a nine-month out-of-action period. So, yes, in the last few months we’ve moved house, I’ve started work with a great renewable energy developer called eole-RES, we moved to France (the hot bit at the bottom end!), and three weeks ago we had our second child, Léonie.

Just a few days before our daughter was born the Salomon podiatrist sent me a pair of custom in-soles and since then I’ve had no knee pain. From crawling home in agony after 10-minute jogs to being able to run for an hour completely pain free in the space of a week or so – wow, what a feeling. And hence, it would appear that my nine-month grievance is finally coming to an end. Yipeee!

In typical fell-runner style, I’m impatient to get racing again and finding it hard not to scouer the calendar for late-season lung-busters, but with only 3 weeks to go, it would probably be a little silly to attempt my early season ambition of the 100 mile UTMB. That’ll have to wait for another year. No, I’m going to (try to) be sensible. Steady away. Perhaps Cavalls del Vent might be feasible, but I’ll have to play it by ear. The thing is, I really can’t afford another injury like this, – I’d quite like not to have to move house, jobs and country again this year and, err, two kids might be enough…

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