Sadventure Completed #60: Beat those feet!

One of the realities of the midlife is that things start to hurt. A lot. In my case, having just gone for a small stroll of 2,650-odd miles, my feet hurt. A lot more than a lot. They call this the ‘hiker hobble’ and I shall be walking around like a drunk octogenarian until December I’m told. Even nearly a month since my last hiking day, and with barely any walking done since, the pain is pretty acute for much of the time, even lying on the sofa, but especially getting up from the couch going to the fridge and back.

This simply won’t do so I was rather glad when someone very generously proposed and paid for my latest Sadventure: to go and get some treatment - like that provided by a chiropractor or an osteopath.

I even had to google the difference between them, and that led me to a plethora of lovely YouTube videos of people having their backs and other joints cracked. It was like mild porn - people being contorted, massaged and rubbed; and then stretched to clicking point! Certainly the noises suggested immense satisfaction. There was even one with a post-appointment interviewed with the patient who claimed it didn’t hurt a bit! I was so sold on the idea.

They lied.

This was not remotely a massage on steroids. It was exercise in torture as my osteopath observed: “It’s unfortunate patients now all have to wear masks, otherwise I could monitor your pain levels in your face.”

His hands were ginormous, his fingers made bananas look like petit fours as he ‘gently’ massacred a spot on my hip. I have not rapid-fire swear words this much in a long time.

Apparently, I have a build up of lactic acid in my calves, primarily my right leg, I can’t think what caused that at all.

Although he claims it’s from not doing sufficient stretching exercises before and after each bout of hiking. I had figured that bending down to pin in my tent each evening and then in the morning to unpin it would have qualified. But, no. Besides, after twelve or thirteen hours of exercises who the hell has time to do thirty minutes of gentle winding down - for me a typical day was throw up the tent, eat, blog, pee, sleep, pee, eat, take down tent, walk, rinse, repeat. For 170 days.

And so now I have to do a ton of home-based stretches, drink a ton of water (more bleeding water!), bathe in Epsom salts and go back again in a week.

I will confess I am walking better though and the pain is less today - perhaps I’ll stop hobbling in November now. Especially if I go back for my second appointment next week.