Well, I have signed up for the local Police and Citizens Gym for the next 12 months. I can see that I will not be running for maybe up to 2 months - so I have to do something to keep my sanity. (and as it is starting to appear, to keep my blood pressure down-- more about this later) . The Gym manager has given me a number of the machines to give me a balanced full body workout - and so far so good. But I have discovered a thing called a recumbent bicycle. Very comfortable and easy to use with no stress on my sore foot at all - but I can see that it can become quite a challenge for me in the cardio department. Has anybody used one of these - it comes with all the kind of cardio programmes that we see on treadmills and has a heart rate monitor.
re the blood pressure reference. About 6-9 months ago I had some testing done re my heart - at that time I was doing a lot of running and had excellent blood pressure numbers. Now that I have not been running for the past 6 weeks, my latest visit to my GP has told me that my BP has risen into the "mild hypertension" zone. He said that perhaps it was because i had stopped running. So I purchased a home blood pressure monitor and it confirmed his GP office reading. Tested for a couple of more days and it stayed at those numbers. But now - after only 2 days at the gym, and about 30 minutes of cardio each day on this recumbent bike, the numbers have dropped towards where they were earlier in the year. Certainly showing promise anyway.