I didn't know pain could feel like this. My physiotherapist Angela has my left ankle in her hands. Her thumbs are kneading my tibialis posterior and I am laughing. I'm laughing like I never have before - sort of yelps and gurgles. If I was 10 years younger I would be in tears. But now I laugh it off, I laugh my head off. I know it's the only relief I'm going to get - either laugh or watch myself break down like a baby. I tell Angela she is hurting me and she says she knows. "Need to be cruel to be kind," she says. She adds helpfully that some of her patients take painkillers before their weekly visits.
It is hurting so much now that I'm sweating and I'm sucking in air in gulps. If I grit my teeth any harder I'll bite my nose off. Where are my endorphins? I could almost be delirious. I'm sure that about this time in ER they intubate you, give you air and gas and then take you to the lift to go up to surgery with Dr Benton.
Angela was a complete stranger five weeks ago. Now she is seeing the worst side of me, my schoolboy reaction to pain, my low threshold to agony. Am I her worst customer? I wonder whether I should ever see her again. How can someone inflict so much pain on a fellow human being - and get paid for it?
As my gurgles subside Angela tells me the problem. My tibialis posterior, a muscle which runs behind the shin to a bone near the instep of your foot, has become inflamed by my running schedule and needs to be worked on. Thumbs aside, Angela whips out the ultrasound, spreading a water gel on my ankle and moving it around with purpose. Then comes a bizarre electronic device - an interferential - with two electrodes held in place on either end of the muscle with suckers. She increases a current running between the red and blue connectors and my leg feels as if it's burning - too much current. It is decreased. The machine is sending an electrical pulse through the muscle, vibrating it. Apparently it repairs scar tissue and reduces the inflammation.
All the way through my dreadful half hour at the physio I hear the voice of Fran, my sensible fellow marathon runner and flatmate. "Tortoise and hare, Dave. Don't overdo the training." She's sensible. I'm not. She's been taking it easy, building herself up. I've been obsessive, running too much.
Maybe I'm paying for drinking too much beer, enjoying myself too much in life, eating too many cheese sandwiches. Nothing in moderation. I'm going to calm down - it's a long way to the finish line.
