The foot was sore again when I woke up. I called the surgery and got a doctor’s appointment for this morning. Like a good boy I pottered along expecting her to tell me that it was Plantar Fasciitis, having worried about it all yesterday.

She had a prod and a poke and told me that I need to go for an x-ray. The form says to check the metatarsal. She then explained that it would take two weeks for results to come back from the hospital and if I wanted results quicker that I should head over to A&E and just sit and wait until someone x-rayed my foot. I’d find out what the problem was there and then. So that seems like a plan for tomorrow.

However, I was told very firmly that I shouldn’t run – not at all – not until we know what the problem is.

Back home I remembered that many years ago I’d bought a rowing machine and that it was probably buried somewhere in the garage. After digging through the layers of home brewing equipment I found the contraption, I brought it back into the house and cleaned it up.

So this evening I’ve tried using it again after well over 10 years. It’s only a cheap old thing, but I thought it would at least get my pulse up and feel like some exercise. I strapped on the heart monitor from the running watch, turned off the GPS and gave it a go.

Observations – well, it’s certainly hard work. I was pushing with my heels so that I didn’t hurt the bottom of my feet, which seemed to work; I certainly didn’t feel any twinges. It took a lot longer for my heart rate to pick up than when running. It took about twice as long to get up to a decent rate and I couldn’t really get it pumping.

Having said that I’m really happy simply because I got around to doing something. I did 31 minutes in total. The watch tells me that I burned 395 calories, which seems reasonable, given that I burned 441 calories when I did the 5k run on Saturday. All good stuff for what is essentially a sitting down exercise.

Tomorrow my cycling helmet arrives and I’ll try to get out on the bike. That’s if I ever get out of A&E.

Part of me really hopes that the doctor has got it wrong. I mean, what does she know? what with her many years of intensive study compared to my gut feeling? The last thing I want is some great lumpen cast on my foot just as I’m working out alternatives to running, and just a couple of weeks before Glasto.

I’ll leave you with The Gap Band – because despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get this out of my head while exercising.