The look of the Physiotherapist’s face really did say it all – ‘You did what!’ she said and I noticed that at the same time her grip on my ankle somewhat tightened. I could tell what she was thinking – here is a seemingly intelligent individual – how on earth did he do this and not think there was going to be no consequences.

Well – let’s go back a little and I will make a full confession for the cause of my Physio’s disbelief. I was at the Physio for an ankle injury – strained tendons and ligaments which in the first diagnosis could have occurred through overuse and not enough rest periods between training runs. In other words I may have overdone the training a tad. Me overdo anything – highly doubtful I thought although it appeared that no one shared this view with me.

Then the Physio asked one more question – ‘Is there anything else that you could have been doing to cause the soreness?’ Her question prompted by the fact that the injury was in one ankle not both which is the norm for these injuries.

There was a moment where I hesitated but just enough for the Physio to sense I hadn’t quite told the full story. Then I confessed. A couple of months ago I had two orthotic’s put into my running shoes to help balance my running style. However I found that one of them really hurt so instead of taking them both out I just removed the one. Therefore for the past couple of months during the increased running schedule I had been doing I was running with one orthotic in and one out.

‘You did what! – do you realize that you have been running totally unbalanced for two months – it’s a wonder you have been able to run at all let alone the injury could have been so much more severe.’ Yes, the look did really say it all. It appears that I require two orthotics – one for each shoe. Novel concept really!

As I lay back listening to the lecture I was receiving and quite rightly I must say I thought about balance. How many of us seem to get our lives out of balance and then think there will be no consequence? I thought how many times have I got work, marriage, home, family, leisure, faith out of balance or body, soul and spirit so unbalanced that some aspect of my life has been injured?

I took the orthotic out and I will put another back in – in other words it does appear that only I can dictate the balance in my life! I am the one responsible!

In the meantime the injury due to the imbalance is now preventing me from doing what I really love to do! That’s what imbalance does I suppose.