Sports Science
The training has been going well, but it’s been a real slow grind getting back to where I need to be. The Madagascar Challenge had taken more out of me than I realised. Firstly there was the massive weight loss of 22kg and then the recovery from the continuous attach of the parasites, bilharzia, the bout of Denghi fever and the rest of the bugs that I had picked up on the island. My weight back up to just over 9kg and most of my muscle mass back, the running niggles now started.
The Patella on my left knee keeps on flaring up, swelling and really sore when I run. So it’s back to Dr. Willem van der Merwe. I had a MRI scan done, and there appears to be quite a lot of scar tissue and damage to the tendon from previous events. Guess what? Back onto the trusted old Grucox bike (this is an eccentric training device invented by Dr Van der Merwe for knee rehabilitation). Hour after hour I fight that machine. Slowly the rewards are there, the knee starts to mend and the pain slowly subsides.
With my daily distance increasing all the time, the knee has started to flare up again. Back to doc and you wont believe the new trick that he has, using my body and it natural fluids to heal itself.
They drew about 250ml of blood from my arm. Then it was taken up to the lab where they extracted about 50ml of plasma and the natural healing plates from the blood. This was then injected into my tendon about 15 minutes later. I am not going into the pain involved but I remember the grinding feeling as the needle was slowly shoved up my tendon until it hit the spot. Then the pain jumps up 50% as the fluid is injected into the tendon. but out I walked with the instructions, “Just drop your training to about 50% for the next 4-5 days and you will be OK”.
Yeah right, I thought as I hobbled out.
To my surprise and absolute astonishment, it was as if I had a dream that my knee was never hurt, the improvement was mind boggling.
There was a bit of pain, discomfort and swelling of the knee, but what a result, nearly back to normal, I am going for the next session this week and then should be back to normal. I am training about 4 hours a day now and just building fitness and getting stronger by the day.
