The physio from his team is doing some self promo by blogging about Brockman’s injuries, which seems patently incriminating:
“Alright, I arrived on day 3. Nedd had run over 300km by this point into some ferocious head winds and constant rain. Nedd was in bed when I arrived from Perth but I was keen to get my eyes on how the body was holding up. The next morning and the first thing I noticed was his knees. There was a good amount of swelling in both of them. Something that we knew we would be dealing with given Nedd was dealing with knee pain before the ran began. As Nedd’s mantra in his home gym goes “no one has ever died from busted knees”.”
Hmmm but were they capable of running 80+km for 45 days subsequently?
And later:
“Day 12 I got the call. Nedd can’t run. He can’t pick up his foot anymore. His plan was to walk the 100km until 1am in the morning. I called Nedd - a strange sense of calm even as he was dealing with the potentiality of what could lie ahead. I distinctly remember him saying “I am just going to keep walking until the wheels fall off.” And he would have unless we convinced him otherwise. I still think about that moment. How far would he have gone if we didn’t convince him to pull up stumps at 42.2km that day? It’s scary to think about really.”
The quick fix, after a 13 hour drive off course to the nearest town with an MRI machine:
“I must give a shout out here to Sports Doctor Dr David Samra. He played a pivotal role in assisting what followed with regards to the cortisone injection and his communication with Nedd was incredible. I remember Nedd telling me it really helped to hear Dr Samra acknowledge his frustrations and he laid out the options very clearly. We put you in a boot and let it settle or we trial an injection into the tendon sheath. He knew the answer he was going to get.
An ultrasound guided injection followed - one injection into the tibialis anterior tendon sheath and one into the extensor digitorum tendon sheath. If you ever have to have this done, it’s not pleasant. Here is Nedd’s description.
“The cortisone didn’t really inject very well as there was so much swelling, it felt like expanda foam going into a tiny little nerve, but we got it in.”
We opted for the use of a dictus band (great suggestion from the doc). Now this band is a type of neurological brace - essentially we use them in people with foot drop. It is a brace that attaches around the ankle joint with a small rubber band that attaches to your laces. When the toes point when you push off it assists in pulling the ankle upwards. Nedd had lost his ability to lift his foot up by this point and in fact he couldn’t really move his foot and ankle at all without severe pain.”
I’m from Australia so have particular interest in this. Could someone explain the Puma inferences? I don’t understand the politics there.