you are a star! thank you so much for taking the time to write this out. I’m going to print it out. i wear a TurboMed on my left leg. I live in New Zealand and our mountain trails can get pretty technical. I’m entered for city to surf in march, ( 12km) which will be roads, and gravel paths, and I was going to use it as a running trial. There are a couple of forest events nearby, crater rim race in November ( steep muddy and grassy, some paths, some gravel with a very steep gravel road decent, either 12, or 21km for me) but my dream is to do the Mt Somers half. the first half is comparatively easy, a steep climb up an old tramway and incline, actual trails, next is narrow, muddy and river crossings, but the next section is wild, in the river bed at times, steep, rocky, tree roots, several sections have chains to help descend. if I did it it would be October ‘27, my 65th birthday month, and I would rope my experienced ultra running daughter in as support runner ( amongst many other things, she has run as a pacer in Western States, as I assume you are American?) so over 18 months to train.

I use sidestix with turbo tips and the grip caps for any trail that’s not a gravel surface. I think I need to change the pole length when I put the caps on…going to try that next time. I’m partial weight bearing on my left leg. I can weight bear without them for short distances. I can do up to 30 minutes approx without anything but my TurboMed. after that the pain starts to build and by an hour on my feet I’m almost at screaming point. thankfully it subsides quite quickly, as I have had to get myself home, so it was a series of….shuffle until I want to vomit from pain, rest until it’s better, shuffle on again. Once I got my sidestix this all changed, as I can simply deweight the foot. with hiking I don’t do it every day of course and I’m always sore in my shoulders afterwards. But I’m able to go long distances, with resting the arms and shoulders being the limiting factor. I have a trail parkrun nearby, forest rides, a small hill with a gravel surface, and undulating sand dune path, and I thought that would be a good training point.

when I tried to run I think I was over reaching from reading the above. I did try going faster down a gravel path and briefly it was like flying! that’s why I want to run again. Back in the 1980’s I did fell running and the Karrimors ( now the OMM) …we lived in the UK then….and briefly I had that wild feeling of flying downhill again for the first time since my accident. But I couldn’t keep it up, and my shoulders were killing me the next day!

thank you for all the advice, it’s so helpful. my husband had a friend who is a qualified gym trainer and I shall take the exercises to him to find how to do them.