LIFE, WELL-ADJUSTED: Keep On Running

December 2023 and I found myself seeing a specialist about my knee.

A seemingly innocuous twist when standing up had caused a severe stiffness and swelling of my knee with the emergence of a rather awkward looking golf-ball sized lump, and the feeling as though it was incorrectly housed in the socket!

I’d certainly given my knees some stick over the years, mainly from running, football, cycling and squash. The knee in question suffered an ACL rupture in 2001, with an operation to repair this prolonging my footballing activities with Bradford Uni’s legendary departmental team, Athletico Admin, for a good few more years.

The Athletico Admin Football Years 1997-2008, including ‘celebration’ of infamous, Waddlesque penalty miss (Image: Andy Nolan)

When the football ceased, jogging/running continued and more latterly cycling took centre stage from around 2018 onwards, and at one point I was cycling around 130 miles on average a week.

UCI Road World Championships 2019, Harrogate Sportive (Image: UCI)

The knee held up well and only in more recent years did I get the odd bout of swelling or clicking which I just took to be normal wear and tear.

Coupled with regular gym visits this had managed to keep me in a decent state of fitness until the aforementioned knee twist kicked in.

And unfortunately the prognosis wasn’t brilliant - after MRI and X-rays it was concluded that (a) the previously repaired ACL had now gone and (b) a quite acute level of osteoarthritis was in existence. All of this pointed to the bleak remedy of a knee replacement - not really what I had been expecting.

The Damaged Right Knee (Image: Yorkshire Clinic)

Whilst I was advised that any knee replacement wasn’t imminently required or urgent, I agreed to try and keep my leg as strong as possible, see how I went pain and movement-wise and take things from there.

I did some research at the time with a couple of friends who’d recently had knee replacement surgery. The general consensus seemed to be that it was not as daunting as it might appear but did involve dedication to the post-op recovery and physiotherapy required. However, both said that it’s recommended to leave the operation until the pain becomes unbearable.

So, at this point I kept doing more of the same - gym + cycling, but this did coincide with other changes in my life - moving house to a new area, a bit more travelling work-wise and whilst I was doing a lot more walking, overall there was some diminution in the levels of exercise I was expending.

Fast forward to May 2025 and its fair to see the lack of exercise had taken some toll, especially with a proliferation of drinking and going out, such that something needed to change.

I’ve documented my move to an alcohol-free life on a separate blog, but this also helped me re-focus on exercise activities.

This was propelled by joining a new gym - the small but perfectly formed fitness space at Settle Area Swimming Pool, provided exactly what I needed to resurrect things - within walking distance of home and a quiet gym room with the right equipment.

Settle Swimming Pool Gym (Image: Damien Wilkinson)

Most importantly the gym activity stimulated me to test out whether I could still run or not.

After the knee diagnosis, I’d assumed running was a no-go. I could still walk significant distances with little issue, but I felt running might be too much impact.

So, with some trepidation I tried some running on the gym treadmill - a few minutes at a time was the initial attempt. It seemed ok and I went through a couple of weeks trying to extend the distance and before long I was managing 10 minutes, then 20 minutes. At the time this felt like running a marathon!

However the big breakthrough came towards the end of June 2025. Having recently adopted Jasper the dog, I realised I’d often been secretly jealous of other people’s running activities with their dogs and wanted to see if I could join this elite club!

Using the local park, which has an enclosed rugby pitch, Jasper and me set forth to run a few laps and test things out. The results were encouraging.

Well, I say encouraging, you must remember that I literally hadn’t run anywhere for around a couple of years. Whilst the runs themselves were ok - some slight stiffness of my knee, the aftermath was more painful - getting up from sitting and the initial walking became somewhat of a concerted effort for a good few weeks!

But things did eventually improve and 7 laps soon became 10 and ultimately we got to the 5k milestone of 13 laps.

Jasper has also responded well to all of this - we try to make an early start to our runs at the weekend which sits well with him, and I have the added bonus of an increasingly powerful dog-motor when running (via a belt-holstered lead arrangement).

A Frosty Run with Jasper, 31st December 2025 (Image: Damien Wilkinson)

Complemented with regular gym visits this has had the twin benefit of improving my overall fitness whilst also giving me some confidence that my knee isn’t completely wrecked and is good for a few more years yet. I fully appreciate that a knee replacement at some point may be inevitable, but the longer I can put this off the better!

As my circumstances are now changing this also gives me the opportunity to widen and improve my fitness regime - both through more regular running and gym work; a return to cycling is also planned as well as even more walking.

I’ll report back with progress!