v-g Backpacking in Britain Blog

The old plantar fasciitis has improved considerably after a little remedial massage on my back at the physio, and she gave me a new exercise to add to the repertoire that is targetted at the old hamstrings. I must say that quite apart from any beneficial effect on my foot in the recovery phase, I’ve noticed on my short ventures to the local shops that my hips and legs seem to move more easily and naturally now, just gliding along compared to the rather laboured and creaky feeling I had in them before. She did say at the first session that my frame was out of whack, plainly I wasn’t paying enough attention to my stretches and posture. I’ll continue with a scaled down version of her exercise regime permanently in future.

Now then, the weather forecast:- it predicts a good settled spell from Thursday onwards. I’ve been lucky so far with the generally crap weather making my forced incarceration quite palatable, but we really can’t miss this. Ideally I would wait a while longer and get my foot totally ready before venturing out on a backpack, but Thursday, ready or not, we go!. We’ll keep the distances short and if it delays total recovery then so be it, I’ll settle the score with the man later.

For some time now I’ve had a puzzling minor problem with my right heel, just a temporary internal pain that jarred when I put my weight on it first thing in the morning or after sitting for a while. It always disappeared quickly and I thought little of it, until the recent Pumlumon backpack: something happened on that walk that tipped the balance and aggravated it. I felt it as usual on getting out of the tent on the last day but this time it didn’t go away, and although it improved as I started walking it later flared up again and I walked the last few miles with the help of painkillers.

I suspected that the culprit was a variant of Plantar Fasciitis, and although the pain diminished considerably over the next few days it did persist. I booked an appointment at a sports physiotherapist, one I hadn’t tried before in Handforth located on the first floor of a fitness centre. There is a purpose built road leading to this complex, a gigantic place full of gym machines of every kind, hydrotherapy facilities, you name it (actually some joker did name it:- the road sign says ‘Fitness and Rehab Centre’ but a while ago someone had crossed out and rewritten two letters so that it read ‘Fatness and Kebab Centre’).

The physio confirmed my suspicions after poking around and applying pressure points on my foot. To probe further she made me do various walking, bending and posturing exercises to assess the problem from a more holistic viewpoint and concluded that overall my ‘frame’ was out of kilter, very probably the main contributory factor taking into account the many miles of backpacking I do. Years ago my previous physio was impressed that the muscles at the base of my back and bum were as hard as Sylvester Stallone’s from all that backpacking but, as he said, ‘your flexilblity in that area is pretty crap!”. This one agreed, and she printed off a sheet describing 4 stretching exercises to loosen up this region and gain some pliability.

She took me through them on the bench, almost constantly telling me to relax and loosen up, and I think they were designed by the Devil himself:- ‘…can you feel that stretch in the whatever…?’ to which I grunted ‘I sure can, but I can feel the hips a lot more, they’re about to crack!’. ‘Right’ she said, ‘do 3 repetitions (per leg) of all 4 exercises 3 times a day and I’ll see you next week for a follow up half-session - and no more yomping up hills for a few days at least’. I’m booked in for Monday.

For those interested, the stretches she prescribed were for:-

• Lower back and glute stretch (illustrated right)
• Piriformis stretch (illustrated above)
• Gluteus Medius stretch
• Hamstring Muscle stretch

Another exercise she prescribed was foot rolling: I had to freeze a tin of something in the freezer and roll my foot over it as hard as I could, giving it a good massage and ice treatment in one go. So I end up sitting in the kitchen with an old folded piece of underlay on the floor and rolling a frozen can of tomatoes backwards and forwards for a few minutes at a time, and it’s damned hard work after a while!.

She was very interested in my rigid custom orthotics, which I had taken along with my Berghaus Pro Rush Mids in anticipation of her questions about the footwear I use for backpacking. Apparently their podiatrist favours the other type which have the very important firm cupped heel but are flexible along their length. Her view was that the rigid ones are great provided your feet don’t change significantly, but my right foot was no longer a good fit and had a gap along one side, possibly another factor in the development of the problem.

The follow up is tomorrow, if my hips can move at all!. In the meantime, and by way of consolation, we’ve added to our repertoire of fine single malts with our first bottle of Isle of Jura to sample: mmmm, nice!.

First thing, I’ve collected my observations on the NeoAir into a review on the main site - nothing new added really, but encapsulating it all in one place might be useful to future readers thinking of lightening their loads. From now on it will definitely be my mattress of choice outside winter (speaking of which, sunset is already noticeably earlier…).

Martin at Summit and Valley posted about his frustrated ambitions for some good backpacking, me too but for a more obvious reason. The godawful weather has been making the headlines, with pictures of tents pitched in standing water and grimacing campers peeping out from their waterproof hoods and brollies.Meanwhile I half heartedly pan across the country in Memory Map and glumly ponder my portfolio of backpacks that I planned in the dark days of winter, so much to look forward to and so little good opportunity. True, there would have been a few superb photos in the brief sunshine between the dungeonesque spells, I’ve seen some magnificent skies at times from the window here in the last few weeks, but most of the walking would not have been at all pleasant. At the moment I’d settle for a decent 2-day slot. There is time yet but I foresee the backpack stats for this year plummeting to an all time low.Adding to the downers is a sense of internet paranoia that sets in at times - well sort of: perhaps people are pissed off with the weather or suffering from SAD, but I spend most of the time at this screen and the vibes can become quite strong. Of the many forum posts and comments I’ve made on other blogs recently, most have been ignored. No response whatever. I start thinking ‘well that was time well spent wasn’t it?’. Sod it, I’ve given up on some of them altogether, we need to get out!.

Edited 31 Jul 2009 09:37: minor rewording for clarity.