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Tentatively back on the Treadmill

I’ve been noticing a dramatic improvement in the achilles over the last few days, now that I’m wearing appropriate footwear and tackling my severe overpronation head-on. The best way of explaining this is that I am just not really noticing my achilles during the day and there is much reduced morning soreness.

As a result, it was time to do a controlled treadmill run to see where I was. For reference, the last time I did one of these a few weeks ago, I managed about 30 seconds before I needed to stop because I could tell it wasn’t doing me any good at all.

I did 17 minutes, broken down as follows:

3 minutes – Warm-up to 8.5 km/h.
7 minutes – Run at 13.5 km/h.
4 minutes – Run at 8.5 km/h.
30 seconds – Run at 12.5 km/h.
30 seconds – Run at 15.5 km/h.
2 minutes – Cool-down.

I was amazed at how strong the achilles felt. There was a slight twinge when starting which faded very quickly, and the same when there was an increase in speed. Again, it went away pretty quickly. This was one of those situations where I could have just kept running but I wanted to avoid ‘Too Much Too Soon’, so kept it short and sweet.

Remember, I lasted just 30 seconds last time. The improvement in just a matter of days is wonderful and has given me a LOT of confidence. I actually enjoyed running! The footwear change and Superfeet are doing the business so far, and this is after months of struggling to deal with rehabilitating the injury.

Of course, an important indicator is how I felt after the treadmill session. There was no additional soreness, and when feeling around the achilles and foot it again struck me how much it has improved this week. If anything, it felt a lot more opened up. The ‘Morning After’ test was also a positive: The achilles felt better than the previous morning, and I hadn’t done any exercise then!

I did a quick bent-knee calf-stretch this morning. This has always been the stretch which really aggravated the injury before. Now I can reach my full range of motion with only a tiny feeling of discomfort, as opposed to the ‘Argh, I should NOT be doing this!’ sensation of before.

I need to stay disciplined with this, but this week has been a major step forward. I’m happy!

Achilles Ultrasound – All clear to referee (carefully!)

I had the follow-up with my consultant this evening, now that the ultrasound on my achilles had been performed. I had been feeling pretty nervous about this as I’ve been looking forward to getting cracking on with the start of the season, and did not want any upsets!

This was the report:

No plantaris tendon was identified separate to the Achilles tendon. There is unremarkable retro-Achilles bursa measuring maximum 1mm depth. There is a strand of low and less linear reflectivity within the Achilles insertion onto the calcaneum centrally and medially, each measuring approximately 1mm deep and up to 2cm length. No increased perfusion is detected. The mid and proximal Achilles tendon and musculotendinous junction look normal. No retrocalcaneal bursitis is detected. No paratenonitis is detected. No erosion of the calcaneum at the Achilles insertion is detected. No calcification in the Achilles tendon is detected.”

CONCLUSION:

Subtle features suggestive of a couple of fine strands of tendinopathy insertional within the medial and central insertion of Achilles tendon.

Essentially, there is a tiny little tear in there which looks like it has been healing well. ‘Healing well’ is indicated by the fact that no evil calcification or other knock-on effects such as aggravation to the bursa have been happening.

I went through my recent improvements with the consultant (including the new footwear). This included the findings on my severe overpronation and the Superfeet orthotic. The good news is that he approved of all this, and in particular that the orthotic was the appropriate type. In his own words, “You seem to be fixing yourself!”.

He is happy for me to carefully resume refereeing. I have also been referred to a recommended physio (my consultant used them for his ACL tear) to work on continued strength and flexibility training.

Achilles injuries are SLOW to heal (poor blood supply), so I feel there is still a bit of a journey ahead of me with this. It will be good to get back to running and other physical training, as getting the weight down will help with all this too!

Bring it on!

Taking on my severe overpronation with Superfeet

Recent video gait analysis (and hey, the same sort of thing done years ago) has confirmed that I am severely overpronating. Just looking at the video made me wince, and it has made all the puzzle pieces fit together regarding my achilles tendonitis.

I picked up some properly fitted running shoes at the weekend (in the correct size too, which might help, huh?), and the extra support for my achilles is immediately obvious. I got new football boots too, again in the correct size, but football boots are traditionally very neutral and do not give much, if any, support. I would be continuing to overpronate and send my achilles into oblivion.

What to do?

Well, orthotics can help with this, and my online research had turned up many positive comments about Superfeet. As a result, I popped along to Alexandra Sports to be fitted out (You can just grab them online but the personal touch is always good!).

The fitting

The customer care at Alexandra Sports was excellent. I took along my new boots so the Superfeet insoles could be fully tested. I tried both the blue and black versions. Both are designed for footwear where there isn’t a great amount of free space, even after taking out the original insoles. Football boots fit into this category!

My preference was the blue. Everything fitted nicely (the lady serving trimmed them as required) and they were really comfortable. The blue give more support so it was a done deal.

And here they are (well, one of them!):

I also have the option of putting these in my running shoes if required. We’ll see.

I performed a quick run on the treadmill with the Superfeet fitted. Wow. NO DISCOMFORT AT ALL. This is a major win for me. Even when the achilles was feeling in a ‘good mood’ I would always be aware of it. During this test, including ramping up the speed to 15 km/h or so (which in itself demonstrated my confidence) everything felt stable. The video replay showed my overpronation had been solved to a huge degree, with my right leg looking pretty normal, although the left leg is still not ideal (it was always the worst, which is ironic considering the right leg was the one that got injured).

Next Steps

As with any shoe change, there has to be a break-in period. I’m wearing one pair of my new boots around with the Superfeet fitted: They are turf shoes (Adidas Mundial Team) which means this doesn’t look weird! I have a 4th official appointment this Friday and then an actual game Saturday.

This is all positive news to take to my consultant tomorrow evening. I just hope he agrees it is positive enough…

New season. New Boots. New Shoe Size!

The new season started today! I had the day closed due to holiday plans, so my first game is next week. However, it was time to take a look at my footwear to make sure everything was all set.

I have suspected for a while that I have not been wearing the right size football boots. I’ve had the classic sign of ‘Black Toenail Death’ in both feet. There has never been any pain involved with this but clearly it can’t be too healthy, particularly when the toenail just falls off due to a new one growing underneath it! It has always felt a bit like a scene from ‘The Fly’.

When I went to try on my boots from last season the tightness was particularly noticeable. Perhaps the lay-off in more flexible shoes has been a factor here? Feeling around the toe box confirmed my suspicions, and I could feel the shoes pushing down on my toes without doing this too. Besides, I’m a bit more sensitive to this sort of thing at the moment due to my ongoing achilles tendonitis issues, which interestingly can be caused / exasperated by, you guessed it, shoes that don’t fit properly!

It is also important to leave a bit of extra space as your feet will swell with exercise.

A shopping trip was required…

Mizuno Wave Inspire 8

I popped along to Alton Sports. First up, I had my running gait video-analysed to see how that looked. I last had this done a couple of years ago, and the results were the same: I very obviously over-pronate. It’s quite scary looking at the slow-motion video as it made me think my ankles were going to snap off at some points!

It was then a case of picking out some shoes, and I went with the Mizuno Wave Inspire 8. Predictably, I did need a whole size higher than I had previously been wearing. They are very comfortable and a treadmill session felt very good. Certainly any achilles discomfort was minimal to zero. The whole twisting inwards motion of over-pronation is a real killer for me, and perhaps is showing another contribution as to why this happened in the first place: If I deliberately go completely the other way, i.e. only use the outside of my foot for a bit, there is no achilles discomfort at all. That’s a strong link I will be keeping an eye on!

Adidas Copa Mundial

These boots are a real classic. The leather makes them incredibly comfortable and I’ve used them for some time. However, they were the primary cause of my beloved black toenails. I’ve also gone up a size and they feel a lot better now. Plus, mmm, shiny new leather!

These are the ones I will use when turf shoes just can’t cut it. Oh, talking of which…

Adidas Team Mundial

Essentially, the Copa Mundials but designed for astroturf. The reality is, however, that they are suitable for most firm ground, which certainly covers football pitches at this time of year. As with the other shoes mentioned here, I needed to go up to size 12, and I was previously a size 11.

What about the Minimalism?

I’m a big fan of minimalist running: It got me over a knee injury. However, I need to do whatever I can now to get my form in good order, and achilles well supported, as part of my continued refereeing and rehabilitation. This was really the reason of getting, dare I say it, a more ‘traditional’ running shoe. The replacement football boots needed to be done anyway for the sizing reasons! I also considered trail shoes for refereeing but struggled to find any that were an appropriate colour. That’s a tricky one.

It is possible that I will require orthotics to aid with support when in my football boots, but that’s a pretty open question at the moment: My follow-up with my consultant is this week. Fingers crossed!

Warming up – A myth?

Gary Turner recently posted something thought-provoking on his blog: Warming up for training – is it necessary?. Check it out!

Two relevant quotes from the research:

“Unfortunately there is an astonishing lack of consistency in research value of warm-up.”

“Perhaps most of the advantage derived from warm-up is psychological.”

It would be interesting to find out what further research there is out there regarding this. Let’s take an extreme example of a total achilles rupture. These have certainly been associated with ‘Weekend Warriors’, for example indulging in basketball for the first time in 20 years, then something going pop. Is it fair to blame that on a lack of a warm-up or is it more realistic for it to be the classic ‘Too much, too soon’ situation and the participant’s body just not up to the task?

Further to this, look at instances of injuries in professional sports. These are athletes who (on paper) do everything right in training, are exceptionally fit, and participate in appropriate warm-ups. Yet instances of serious injury still occur. I’m not referring to collision-based ones or similar ‘freak’ accidents, but more something just giving out, such as the aforementioned achilles rupture. And this can happen deep into a match, not within the first thirty seconds.

Injuries due to overtraining make a lot of sense. However, this is just not the same thing as an injury due to the lack of a warm-up.

What benefits do I get from a warm-up? Say, before refereeing a match?

HEART RATE: Get it elevated. Essentially means I feel ‘pumped’ and ready to go as soon as the match begins.
MUSCLE SORENESS: Get rid of any muscle soreness / tightness that may be present. I want this to happen BEFORE the match starts.
SANITY CHECK: Am I broken? 😉 Identifying issues early on means being able to take appropriate action before it is too late. This might be deciding to stop the activity, or doing something to prevent further issue (strapping up?)
SHOW FACE: Evident to the teams and onlookers that we are taking this seriously too.
INTEL: Get a good feel for the attitude of the teams, if they are also warming up.

As Gary touches on, most of these are psychological, not physiological. The heart rate one is interesting, and it left me wondering whether this actually has any physical impact or the body is simply ramping up the heart rate to meet demand.

Either way, it would be interesting to see more research on all of this!

End of Season Review 2012/2013

It’s that time again! This follows on from the End of Season Review that I wrote last season. It’s a chance to reflect before moving onwards.

THE GOOD:

I GOT LEVEL 4: This was my primary goal for the season. I went into the season requiring another four assessments, as although the first one was good, it wasn’t good enough! Thankfully, they all went well to the extent that I knew that for the final assessed game I was home free provided I didn’t really screw it up. There was then a waiting game until I found out whether The FA would take me, and thankfully they did.
CUP FINALS: As the promotion indicates, I performed well during the season, and was awarded with a total of five cup finals, including a county cup. That’s certainly something I am very happy with, although I know not to expect the same sort of thing next season, mainly due to the consequences of refereeing at the next level.
KNEE ISSUES SOLVED: I transitioned to minimalist running before the season started. This worked much better than I imagined, and I took the preliminary fitness test in that style too. The ligament issues I was suffering with in my leg knee healed up pretty quickly. The knee was probably being shot to pieces with all the heel-striking. I felt I was my fittest yet going into the season.
FITNESS TEST PASSED: A requirement for Level 4. Technically this happens between seasons, but hey, it’s happened! I passed the fitness test with no issues despite the achilles issue mentioned below. In fact, I ran the same distance as last year, which was pretty surprising to me.

THE NOT SO GOOD:

ACHILLES PROBLEMS: In February, some form of achilles tendonitis crept up on me in my right leg. I suspect an overuse injury following the lay-off over Christmas, increased in scope with the terrible weather! Oh, and my lazyness in not keeping up the supplementary training. It’s never been awful but has put me off training for fun, and is still not resolved at the time of writing. As a result, I’m pretty fed up with it and in the early stages of having a consultant involved (X-Rays, Ultrasound and so on).
FITNESS LOSS: Perhaps a bit harsh to put this, but I would consider my fitness levels to have dropped due to not wanting to train with the persistent achilles issue. It didn’t cause any issues towards the end of the season, and of course the fitness test I mentioned earlier went well.
WEIGHT GAIN: The achilles is my excuse here. Limited exercise = Weight gain. However, it’s a poor excuse as there is nothing stopping me from eating healthily! I have put on about a stone compared to my best weight. I need to pull together the discipline and get that sorted.

GOING FORWARD:

Firstly, I’m obviously looking forward to my first season as a supply league referee / contributory league assistant referee. It’s going to be a great experience. My goal here will simply be to ‘Do well and enjoy’.

Secondly, I need to get a handle on the achilles issue. That’s in progress but looks like it will be slow. Very slow. It may even result in me missing some of the beginning of the season as part of the rehabilitation. Worth it though, as I want to be enjoying my exercise and therefore refereeing.

Thirdly, I need to get full fitness back. I’m not unfit but I am falling short of my own standards in this area.

Let’s see how it goes!

Battling with Insertional Achilles Tendonitis

I’ve been struggling with Insertional Achilles Tendonitis since around February. I really need to get it sorted now, so am going to start blogging about it to maintain some sort of focus.

The history is fairly typical for this sort of injury: Overuse. I’ve been running regularly for years as a football referee. In a typical game, I will travel 10 km in a variety of ways: Walking, jogging, running, sprinting, running backwards, changes of direction… It’s all going on! When fully fit I would also be engaging in training runs of between 5 and 10 km, and last year I did the Great South Run (10 miles) with no problems at all.

I used to be a classic heel-strike runner, but switched to a minimalist style last year. I managed to transition pretty quickly and was using that style for about eight months before the achilles issues struck. Transitioning also solved the knee ligament issues I was suffering from in my left leg! Due to the long time period before the achilles issues came on, I’m not blaming the minimalist style here, but I do accept that it does load the achilles more than heel-striking — That’s how it saves the knee joints from being shot to pieces!

So what happened?

Well, over the last winter we had atrocious weather in the UK. Lots of games were postponed. I was lazy and did not keep up my supplementary training runs. Then it was the Christmas break and I didn’t do anything then either, but did put on a bit of weight! When the season started again the weather continued to be bad, so it wasn’t really until February that I was back to full-intensity games. And that was the problem. I went from a sustained period of doing nothing to resuming my usual refereeing intensity, and at that point the tendonitis started. As is typical, there was no sudden ‘BANG’ moment: it was more of a dull that came on the following morning. It never really went away and has persisted since then.

I would class the pain as annoying. It doesn’t impact my performance per se: I can still run, sprint and so on, but I just end up paying for it afterwards or the next day. Doing two activities in two days is really asking for trouble. Basically, it makes me not want to or enjoy training, and that has gotten worse over time. Not because the soreness has gotten worse, more that I am just getting completely fed up with it.

At the end of last season I took a bit of a break, but short-lived. About three weeks. That isn’t very much for an achilles tendon injury from the reading I have been doing. I then needed to train for my fitness test (Cooper Test and sprints), which I passed with no problem. Then another four weeks of rest before I got a bit over confident and did two 5k runs in two days, and the soreness came right back. Not as bad as it has been though, I will say, but again the fact I am not healed is getting tiresome.

I’ve had some physio during this time but I am left feeling that in my case, it isn’t helpful without giving the tendon time to rest first. Calf stretches cause pain due to the tugging on the tendon. It isn’t the ‘nice’ sort of pain you get when you know a stretch is doing you good. It’s the ‘Please don’t do this!’ sort of pain. There seem to be various references that the best thing to do is ACTUALLY REST IT, and certainly don’t try stretching and strengthening until that painful acute stage is over. Common sense, I guess?

The latest is that I have seen a consultant who has taken X-Rays and an Ultrasound. I’m awaiting my follow-up. The X-Ray has not shown anything out of the ordinary: Perhaps a very slight Haglund’s Deformity but it seemed very, very small compared to some of the example ones on the Internet. Besides, this did come on in an ‘overuse’ scenario. The Ultrasound confirmed a very small (1mm or less) tear. I don’t know exactly where yet until the follow-up. The optimist in me sees this as a good thing in a way: A tear can heal, even if it will take a while, and I’d rather it be that rather than some structural failure.

The immediate plan is more rest until the follow-up in a week or so. I won’t know then whether I should commence refereeing in the new season when August swings around. If I have to declare myself injured for a month or two (maybe more?!) then so be it. The important thing is to beat this. Much as I will be chomping at the bit as a result!

Watch this space…

Getting svn:externals right on the command line

We ended up with multiple projects needing access to the same set of internal modules. Rather than keep multiple copies of the same code in different Subversion repositories, it made sense to link the code in by way of the svn:externals property.

This took a few attempts to get right. The working propset line is below (remember to be in the directory you want to place the local directory first!):

svn propset svn:externals 'local_modules -r87 svn://subversion.hub.server/remote_repository/trunk/remote_modules' .
svn update
svn commit -m "Added svn:externals link to remote_modules, revision 87."

Some important notes:

SPECIFY A REVISION NUMBER: This keeps the version of the modules in your local repository stable. They will not automatically update when a developer is fiddling around with the remote repository. Thus, things stay nicely consistent, and bringing in an updated set of modules is under your control (just update the property when ready).
DO NOT CREATE THE LOCAL DIRECTORY FIRST: Subversion will create it for you. If it is already there, you will get lock errors. If for some reason the local directory is versioned, then you will need to delete it from Subversion first.
LOOK AT THE QUOTES: Look at where the quote characters are. This is important. Ditto for the full stop at the end!

Happy Subversioning! Although Git is a lot friendlier with how it handles this sort of thing, with its equivalent of submodules.

Jenkins and archiving broken symbolic links

I am in the process of implementing Jenkins as a continuous integration system at work. It’s an incredibly extendable framework so just perfect for our needs.

We will be keeping things simple to begin with: Simply grabbing appropriately tagged code from Subversion and making it available for installation elsewhere. It will be handling multiple projects which will solve a current issue with each project having its own secret sauce build system. Centralisation is good!

However, I did encounter an issue with symbolic links. We had a few instances where the symbolic link referenced a location outside of the repository, which would not exist on the build server. Jenkins does not preserve symbolic links when archiving. Instead, it tries copying them… and in this example that results in an error.

The solution I have gone for is to:

Get rid of those symbolic links where possible.
Convert to relative links in the case where absolute links were making a repository not compatible with a neutral build server.

This works nicely.

I have received some advice on StackOverflow on this issue which has been useful. In particular, an alternative archiving system (such as tar) could preserve the symbolic links, although would need to be implemented at a build level.

In terms of a final installation package for the projects, we are going down the RPM route here, which looks like a happy medium. I don’t mind Jenkins effectively dereferencing symbolic links for installations: Permissions and the like are what we need to watch out for!

MongoDB: Adventures with sharded replica sets

One of the great things about MongoDB, and of course one of the key points in handling ‘Big Data’, is its handling of replication and sharding.

It is not within the scope of this particular post to describe the above concepts (follow the links!), although remember that replication is concerned with data security and sharding is concerned with data scaling.

It stands to reason that a combination of the two is required in order to have both security and scaling.

To get a sample environment up and running quickly, I have created a GitHub repository which brings up a simple sharded replica set example. It has two replica sets, each with three ‘mongod’ servers, and the required configuration and ‘mongos’ servers. It puts an appropriate amount of test data in to show the sharding in effect. It is easy to get up and running on a single machine, or VM if you prefer.

GitHub repository (includes documentation): sharded_replica_sets.

Enjoy, and please let me know if you have any comments.