Crowden Horseshoe 2012 8m 1700'

the car park

Nothing is easy round Glossop. Today saw my second encounter with the Crowden Horseshoe, and I was hoping that forewarned would mean forearmed and help me do a bit better on this tough course.

Pretty similar to the Kinder Downfall route in profile and terrain, the Crowden Horseshoe’s got rocky scrambles, narrow paths with big drops off the side, plenty of bogs and a cheeky dose of flagstones just to offer an extra chance to break your neck, in case you had missed it during the first part of the course.

This one climbs steadily upwards for the first 4 miles or so up to Soldier’s Lump which is just about as high as Holme Moss TV mast which is visible in the near distance. Rivers and streams that were trickles last year were well up this time round, which made for interesting running and crossing. Recent downpours had also given the bogs a helping hand and they were at their shoe-sucking best, coming just after the trig point and the previous few miles ascending to add an extra dimension to the race.

Once the turn is made at the trig point you strike back down a parallel route towards Crowden YHA, this part is undulating through groughs and bogs for a good few miles until some tricky descending back into the campsite.

I had a good few tussles with some other runners and everyone said how tough it was this time round – the weather was pretty fine except a brief downpour and a hailstorm over the tops.

I think there were 4 of us from Pennine there today, the rest of whom came in before me but I was just happy I managed to run all of the race as my comeback since chipping my ankle in April.

Next stop Cracken Edge on Wednesday!

http://fellrunner.org.uk/results.php?id=1423

Weber A fracture - ankle

I'm writing this post as an aid to anyone who sustains a Weber A fracture of the ankle, as I could find little help or information on the internet after chipping the outside of my ankle earlier this year.


A Weber A fracture is the least severe type of fracture in terms of implications on tendons, ligaments or surrounding muscles - in my case I bent my foot prety much all the way back on itself running down a skate ramp and somewhere along the line managed to chip the bottom of the bony lump on the outside of my ankle.


It hurt like hell at the time and my ankle pretty soon swelled up to the clichéd size of a golf ball. Mrs theoptimisticrunner took the opportunity to have a good laugh at my predicament, which was severe enough for me to roll around in a puddle groaning, oblivious to the soaking i was getting.




 I took a fair whack of Ibuprofen and paracetamol and was put in a half/open plaster the next day at Buxton Hospital. They were unable to diagnose me from the X Ray and so booked me in at the Fracture Clinic the following Monday.

the docs at the fracture clinic saw straight away the ankle was fractured, explaining it as a Weber A fracture. They said I was ok to walk on it as long as I could manage the pain, but advised against running for 6-8 weeks.

my return to mobility looked like this:

1 week - back walking again
3 weeks - 5 mile walk over flat ground with little discomfort
4 weeks - all clear and referred to physio
6 weeks - 1 mile gentle run, some hills
7 weeks onwards - walking 5 miles daily as part of my commute and dog walking
8 weeks - 5 mile fell run (moderate hills)
9 weeks - 9 mile fell run (moderate hills)
10 weeks - 13 mile fell run (easy hills)

As the docs explained to me, all bones have a 6 week healing process no matter who you are. I eat a reasonably good diet (5 a day and only a modest amount of cake, which is stricly earnt by doing exercise) so had a decent starting point in terms of vitamins and goodies existing in my body to help the healing process.


I had two subsequent physio sessions which involved being given some exercises to do - along the lines of standing on the affected foot and raising my body up and down, also hopping on the spot in different directions (imagine a 2 x 2 grid, starting with your foot in the bottom left box and jumping to and from the various other boxes)

I don't go much for physio and stretching, I found that by listening to my body and building a good foundation of walking before trying anything too adventurous I was able to get back running within a reasonable time. I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions please leave a comment on here and i'll do my best to help.

thanks

TOR