1 month post surgery

My house this evening.

It’s now a month since my surgery. My ankle is getting ever closer to a normal size. However, it’s still stiff as hell and I feel a good way off getting into the mountains. There should hopefully now be some fibrocartilage cells growing over the defect that was drilled in my surgery. I experimented with a 5 mile cycle the other day, and it felt a little raw after that. The following day I walked the best part of a Km on the flat and it was fine with that. Early days? Hopefully. In another couple of weeks the fibrocartilage should be a little more mature and I should get a better idea how I’ll be fixed for proceeding to longer walks and climbs into mountains.

In the meantime, I’ve progressed from easier moves on near vertical terrain to a proper session of bouldering on my own board. The first session was shaky but OK and I managed one medium and one quite hard problem, although the hard one had a foot-off crux so it doesn’t really count. On the second session I could make some quite difficult moves, but some moves that I normally find easy were not possible just yet. Strength, stability and confidence will need many sessions over the coming weeks to build up. Great to be doing the whole routine of climbing though.

It’s quite a nice reminder of how much power you apply through your lower body on hard moves, even when the footholds are very poor. Being able to test this on board problems I’ve done before is an eye opener. Where my foot normally maintains body tension and pulls really hard to stay on, right now it just lifts off without me being able to do anything about it. The priority is to get mileage on problems and routes I can onsight or do in two tries for the time being to reeducate the motor patterns as well as gain the strength right through the chain to my toes.

On Thursday I’m travelling to Glasgow for a coaching session with the youth squad at TCA and then my lecture there on Saturday at 6.30pm. Do come along to that. For a slightly cheaper advance ticket, give TCA a ring on 0141 429 6331.