Pleasure or Pain?

Quick update on my physio session. For anyone who read last years blog they will recall that I use a German physiotherapist called Romy. She is excellent and last year diagnosed my stress fracture, recommended a great consultant and worked on my legs enough to get me through the marathon, that is why I turn to her when I get aches and pains. Unfortunately there is a price to pay with this physio, I am convinced she works on the rule "No pain, No gain". Romy has the strongest thumbs known to mankind and she's not scared to use them. So yesterday I braved the hippies, crusties, anarchists, soap-dodgers, real protesters and police and made my way along the Central Line and DLR to Westferry. Within minutes of arriving I was in my shorts lying face down on the table waiting for a gentle comforting massage on my calf. How foolishly optimistic was I!
For the first 4 to 5 minutes I managed to maintain some level of conversation, though I was starting to sweat as Romy's thumbs dug further into my muscles. After 5 minutes I lapsed into silence as I was either gritting my teeth or letting out small, high pitched whimpers. For the next 2 minutes this so-called health professional tortured me while telling me about her plans to set up home with her boyfriend, go travelling and have kids. Finally the agony ended, Romy wheeled over the infra-red ultra-sound heat torch thingy-me-wotsit, slapped some gel on my calf and for 5 minutes I had a gentle massage - now this is what I came for.
So I left the physio in ten times as much pain as I had been 45 minutes previous. As I made the 30 second walk to Westferry I heard over the tannoy that all the hippies, crusties, anarchists, soap-dodgers, pot heads and real protesters were leaving Docklands so the police diverted my DLR to Tower Gateway. Eventually after many changes of tube and bus I made it home.
As Sharon and the small people were out I headed up to the shed to do 30 mins on the bike to stretch out the leg. The sun was out and the shed like a greenhouse. 30 minutes and 3 pints of sweat later I staggered to the house dehydrated mumbling about bloody germans, need for drink, leg pain and hippies.