Category: Nigel’s Reports

In my previous blog post I doubted that I would ever run again following my multiple fracture accident in December 2014. Now, I am more positive. I feel like a runner again

I am using a new term for my “style” of “running”. Hurpling, noun – hurple, verb to hurple. According to my Scottish sheep farming friend, hurpling is the word used to describe the way a lame sheep tries to run. Hopefully my own hurpling will not result in the deployment of a 12 bore…

Anyway, I’ve come on here to post a new post accident, post conversion of Birmingham Hip Resurfacing to  total hip replacement (THR) 5k PB of 43:32 Doesn’t sound much, but on June 7th I posted this on Facebook – “First Garmin recorded training event today – 26 days post hip replacement. 0.64mi/1.03 km in 24 min. Two crutches. The journey begins”.

Today, Sept 4th, I “ran” the first mile, then 4 more segments with 0.10 mile walks in between. I’ve changed my gait in order to minimise impact on my hips so I’m running on tiptoes, without a stick although I still need one for walking (Rt leg is about 3cm shorter than left thanks to the injury sustained last December).
Of course, the temptation is to try too hard now and end up worse off than ever. Plan is to stick to 6 days exercise a week – 3 in the gym and 3 on the road. Goal now is to run 5k without walking and once that has happened a few times I will do a Park Run and increase the distance of one of the road sessions (gradually) to 5miles. The third road session is going to stay as a 5 mile walk for the foreseeable future – certainly until I’m back on a bike

Today, and for the last fortnight – I have been donning the full running kit when I go for a hurple. It makes an immense and very positive psychological difference – slow as I am I feel like a runner again!… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Forgive me Tin Hip Runners for I have sinned. It is a very, VERY, long time since I visited the site and there have been Significant Developments…

As I have written before, I had my right hip resurfaced on June the 24th 2014. Or it may have been the 20th. The operation was put back from January 2014 when my dicky ticker was unmasked and I had to have a pacemaker inserted for sinus bradycardia. My anaesthetist was a bit unhappy about proceeding when I had a pulse of 18 bpm. Yep, 18…!

I was easing gently and sensibly back into running with a goal of 3 runs a week. One 5k, one 5mile and one 10k. No more marathons and probably no more halfs. I’d got to the 3 runs a week point (2 x 1.5mile and 1 longer) and had run 5 miles on November the 30th. Pace fairly rubbish at around 11min/mile but at least I was running again. Due to ischaemic brain disease causing me significant memory/learning issues, I had been reluctantly retired (on November 28th) but that’s another tale. I was intending to use my retirement to see more of my family, pursue my hobbies (running, cycling, gym, model railways, playing the french horn in bands and orchestras and – sad I know! – home making). As an epileptic who is not fit-free I don’t drive but I cycle as bot transport and exercise. “What” I pondered “can I do to help ease some of the driving burden and time pressure on my wife?”. The answer was staring me in the face – three times a week I would do morning stables for our daughter’s showjumper. A 5 mile fast ride downhill most of the way (fast twitch and cardio), turn the horse out (walk and mind games), muck out the stable (weight training) and then a 5 mile slogging ride back up to home (stamina and swearing practice). This worked a treat until December the 4th when a large white van didn’t quite overtake me. I was (so I’m told) projected through the air … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Not quite 6 months down the line (24th June 2014) from my resurfacing, I ran my first 5 miles today in 53:56 (Pace 10:46). Not a great speed, actually 4 min slower than my old 10k time, but 5 miles nevertheless!
It’s been hard work including a lot of hours in the gym building core strength and battling weight gain but I do now feel like a runner again. I’ve had some pain, and I have actually listened and cut back (10.46 miles in a week proved to be too much at the 4 month point) as well as consciously trying NOT to heel strike.
Next goal – 10k by the end of Feb
Watch this space…… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

15th Sept 14

I’m not really sure how this is going to pan out. In my fantasy world I am a great writer, churning out miles and miles of deathless prose (I even have an old manual typewriter and panama hat…) but I know that I am far from Hemingway, Greene or Steinbeck

What I certainly do have though is a tin hip and a determination to become a runner once again. I’m only 51 and I’d like to think that I have a few miles left in me. Maybe I will regain my old pace which – at best – on anything more than a mile was only ever 8m30s. Shush, you 5 minute milers – your laughter is audible! What I’ve decided to do is to record my exercise diary here in the hope that I can look back on it in a year and see my journey. I’m prepared to risk failure and also to risk advice will all be well meaning and may well be contradictory or even contentious.

I intend to update fortnightly. Here’s the first instalment, it was a table in pages but that doesn’t seem to have transferred:-
It’s set out like this.

Date Plan Reality Time/Pace How it felt

25th August Run 1 mile on tarmac
Poles & stops if needed” 1 mile run, no poles 12:06 Aching in muscles
No joint pain

26 August Gym Included 0.5 mile treadmill 5:06/10:12 No hip pain

27th August Run 2 km on tarmac 2km Run on country lane 15:15/12:19 Uneven gait at start, hard to get going but ok after

29th August Run 2 km on tarmac, faster than Wednesday 2km/1.25mi 14:48/11:39 Very happy that pace is improved

1st September 1.5miles steady 1.5miles 17:51/11:54 Achieved, slower at end

3rd September 1.5miles steady 1.86mi/3km 22:43/12:13 Felt better than expected so did a little more

6th September 2 miles 2.01mi 24:20/12:06 “Sprint” finish – 0.1 @ 8:45

9th September 2 miles, better pace 2.0miles 22:22/11:11 1:59 better than Sat, same course

12th September 2 and a bit miles 2.19mi 24:26/11:08 Happy. Short lived aching

13th September… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Wel, it wasn’t very far but it was a run. Of sorts. Just a reminder – I had a metal-on-metal resurfacing of my right hip on June 24th, at the age of 51 and a half (the half matters. To me!). I have been walking daily from the day I came home (on June 29th – cardiac history kept me in a little longer than usual) and gradually building up my distances, progressing from crutches to a stick and trekking poles (these are wonderful) over the weeks.

On August 14th, a shade over 7 weeks post op, I ran a few paces at a time in the course of a 4 mile walk. Around a quarter of a mile in total. When on a training walk, rather than a stroll, I wore all my running kit including Garmin watch. I was ecstatic!

Last week, I ran a total of 4 miles of which the longest was 1.25. My average pace is around 12min/mile – not great but it feels wonderful. I’m doing about a mile a week on the treadmill (yawn) and the rest on the road.

Today, I managed 1.86miles (3km) at an average of 12min/mile but with a short burst at 9m30s/mile.

I have been inspired by the stories on here and all of what I am doing is with the full agreement of my surgeon and my physio. Gym 3 days a week (strengthening core and glutes), running 3 days a week and a lot of general cycling to get to places.

It’s possible. It can be done. I have had no joint pain, just protesting muscles. I hope that my story helps someone.… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

I would have written this a week ago, but can’t work out how to do so from an android device…

Under a combined single shot diamorphine spinal and general anaesthethic, I had a right metal-on-metal Birmingham Hip Resurfacing (henceforth BHR) implanted last Tuesday, 24th June, by Andrew Thomas at the hospital where some of the very first ones were done – The Royal Orthopaedic, Birmingham, UK. The procedure took slightly over 2 hours, Andrew said that the joint and surrounding tissues were very chewed up and inflamed. Of course, I should have been done in January but wasn’t – see last post

I can’t say that the immediate post-operative period was pain free. It wasn’t – well, not once the spinal had worn off anyway. The evening and night of Tuesday, into Wednesday were the most painful hours I have ever endured, not helped by the need for a (frankly ham-fisted) urinary catheterisation or the fact I’ve been on morphine for ages and am anaphylactically allergic to ibuprofen and thus take no NSAIDs

But, these things pass and I soon realised that the dreadful grating and grinding pain had gone. Not a bit, not ocassionally, gone. Completely

I stood with a frame on Wednesday morning and for the first time in forever could take my weight through my right hip. Walked a bit and learned how to transfer on Thursday morning – walking with supervision by the evening

The frame stayed until Friday afternoon and then it was two elbow crutches on Saturday, did lots of walking and was – apart from getting the anti-embolism stockings on and off and my right shoe – independent

Sunday – stairs and home. I walked outside for the first time yesterday evening and did 100m/yds in 25 minutes. It felt fantastic.

So today – Tuesday 1st July – I am really believing that I might be a runner again one day.

I’ll keep updating

2 WEEK UPDATE – 9th July 2014

Well, it’s now two weeks since my new hip and yesterday I hit two milestones. The stitches came out and my … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

All the appointment confirmations for the op and pre-op clinic have come. Now it feels very real and a bit scary. Having participated in thousands of THRs and resurfacings when I was a scrub nurse, all I can remember are the 1 or 2 that went wrong…
Tried altering my gait from heel strike to forefoot strike for the first time today. Feels very odd but not as impossible as I thought it would be. Hoping that I can keep running (before the op) for long enough to hit 1,000 miles for 2013. Wish me luck!… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

The title says it all really!
I went to see Andy Thomas (Orhopaedic Consultant) at my old hospital, the Royal Orthopaedic in Birmingham UK, last Friday – 29th November. X-Ray (very noticeably worse than the one taken in July this year) and a thorough examination (which was very nearly accompanied by screaming) and the joint (sorry -pun intended) that he would perform a resurfacing of my right hip pretty soon, with any luck before the end of January 2014.
http://www.thomas-orthopaedics.co.uk/orthopaedic-surgery/hip-resurfacing/
This is mainly for pain relief, pain which is now constant and often excruciating to the extent that I am doubled up in a “locked” state. I find it very hard to understand how rapidly it has gone from being a mild twinge in May to this; from running a marathon in April and 40+ miles a week at 9 min/mile pace to no more than 5km at a time at 12 min/mile now and to taking 10 minutes to get dressed.
Of course, I mentioned running and at least he understands. we are regularly entrants in the same 10k races… He can’t promise anything, but I know from my reading here that it is possible.
In a bizarre way I am looking forward to the operation. I am fairly confident that the pain will be dealt with and I really hope to be a runner again.
It will happen. Somehow!… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

I’m still not a fully paid up member of this exclusive band for two reasons.

First the obvious one. I don’t have a hip replacement and it may be that whatever is wrong with mine doesn’t warrant one, but everyone who’s poked, prodded, manipulated or heard about it thinks that I will have one. I was expecting to see the consultant this Friday (15th Nov) but my appointment has been put back by first one week and then 2 so i will know more on the 29th. The surgeon is an old friend of mine – I was his scrub nurse for 9 years or so (and I beat him in a 10km road race in June!) – and I trust him implicitly. He will definitely understand my NEED to run

The less obvious, and to me more distressing, reason for my non-membership is that I am getting worse while everyone else is getting better. I struggled to run 5 miles last Wednesday (took me 53:11), Sunday was 4 miles and today 2. My hip now hurts nearly all of the time, my only relief is once I have achieved a seated position.

This forum is inspiring me to keep going and to know that I can run with a THR.

It will get better. Won’t it?… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

I was going to start with saying it all began on June 4th this year (2013) because that is the first date on which I have mentioned hip pain in my training diary. But I need to go back a little – to 2006 when I was diagnosed (at not quite 44) with type 2 diabetes. I found out that exercise helps, so I started running, no more than 100m at a time to start with. My distances improved steadily, my pace did the same and within 6 months I was hooked – races, events, training in all weathers (buying gadgets and gizmos), reading about running and generally “becoming a runner”. I’ve never been a great runner – my best ever mile was in 7:14 – but I have come to love it. Last year, I developed epilepsy (blogged about it here, there are 8 posts in all http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1858405660875346051#editor/target=post;postID=4476106637868878137;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=7;src=postname)

Enough of all that – I’m really here to talk about my hip. I have seen a fair few hip replacements – for 13 years I was an orthopaedic theatre (operating room) scrub nurse and I reckon I’ve participated in around 2,000 of them. As I have said June 4th was a significant date – my doctor informed me that I no longer have diabetes (running has seen it off he says) so I asked him to look at my hip “while I’m here” as it had been a bit sore. My mum, younger brother and my dad have all had total hip replacements so – after a manoeuvre on my leg which made me want to punch him – he sent me for an X-Ray. Result – I have osteoarthritis in both hips, worse in the right.

Things have deteriorated rapidly since June. From a regular weekly run mileage of 40+ I can now manage around 10. From running 6 days a week I can now manage 3 if I’m lucky. From a weekly long run of 20 miles I’m lucky if I can do 10km. From a decent (for me) pace of 8m30, a half marathon PB of … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)