The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good

I just ate tacos. And they were fantastic.

The Bad

Just kidding, there's more good, thankfully!

My knee is starting to feel a little bit better. I still don't see myself doing, uh, anything this week, but it's at least getting better. I went to the A.R.T. guy today. He thinks he can help, and I got one treatment today, but I'm going to sit on it a little bit longer. I'm kind of iffy about therapy (see "The Ugly"). I'm also making progress on my pile of work, so I'm hoping to make it home on Thursday. Maybe I will get a few days off!

Luckily, though, I've been in this "hyper learning mode." I'm not sure what caused it, but I'm finding everything extremely interesting lately, almost anything from my classes to biking to web servers to... other computer science topics I won't bore you with. Hopefully it sticks around for a while (like until I graduate)!

The Bad

The knee isn't perfect, though. When I shower the heat from the water makes it sore for a little bit. But no worries, hygiene is not going to end up listed under "The Bad"! Also, my sleep schedule is completely jacked up. The last two nights I was working on stuff until about 3am. When I don't work out I never fully wake up, but I also don't really get tired at night. I live in limbo, it sucks!

Also, I will comically put under "The Bad" that my computer is too fast. In one of my assignments I need to compare the speed of my program to another, but I can only time them so accurately. The result? Yep, everything takes 0.00 seconds and I can't see any more accuracy to make conclusions. Who wants to donate an old crappy computer?!

The Ugly

Right now, the ugly is very ugly. Yesterday I got a call from the one type of business nobody wants to hear from. Thats right, a collection agency. Wait. W T F?! I don't owe anything to anybody, do I?

Apparently I do.

My physical therapist has been trying (although not very hard) to mail a bill to my address, but has been leaving the apartment number off. So rather than call me (which he did several times during therapy, he has my number) he decided to pass it on to a collection agency who says "Hello! Give us $xxx.xx by tomorrow or the puppy your credit history gets it!"

It basically works out to me paying the wrong person the deductible (ART guy got that) and the PT charging me more than the amount (which they swore up and down) they said they would. Unf. Ramen noodles, anyone?

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That's whats up in my life. Thanks to everyone for the extremely encouraging comments! Here's some responses:

Christine - Don't go calling Endurance Trends 'little', it's going to be anything but little. Good luck with the 'little' degree you're working on, too. :)

Nic - The Relenting Runner is dead. He won't be back unless one of my legs literally falls off. Although, I do have a clever name up my sleeve if I decide to completely change my focus to triathlons...

PreFan - Never tried Accelerade. I usually stick with Gatorade, even though I know it really isn't the healthiest choice ('lethal' amounts of HF Corn Syrup).

A. R. T. -- The End

Today was my last day of A.R.T. for this round of injury. Although it didn't fix my hip, I am still convinced it is a good technique to know about, and to have in my arsenal the next time an injury rears its ugly head! I have a feeling our paths will cross again sometime in the next year or two.

I don't know what hit me last night; perhaps a combination of waking up early, starting ASTYM, and not wanting to do my homework. I decided to lay down while icing my legs, and I was out like a light from 8-10pm. When I woke up I was in "what the hell just happened?!" mode. I wasn't even planning on sleeping. I got up for a little bit, took care of some email, ate some food, and went to bed. For another 11 hours. Eleven freaking hours! At least it gave my leg some good time to recovery from my treatment.

I've been sticking with my stretches and exercises pretty well today; even with the rather intensive schedule of stretching four times a day and doing the exercises twice. I decided the best way to do it is to associate them with eating. I can't eat unless I stretch. Since I always eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed this system should work out pretty good for me. Then, I suppose, for two of them the exercises will be required as well.

My legs are feeling really, really great today. If I didn't have my self imposed break from running, I definitely would have put in a few miles today! I actually did jog out to my car today, just to see how its feeling. It didn't hurt. Not at all. It down right felt good! But regardless of this, I'm still off for at least another week. I've been here before. I've felt great and had running tear me right back down to square one!

On an unrelated note, class rocked today! No, not because I learned a lot. Far from it. Most of it was just review. My professor, who is an older, short, Chinese guy said: "If someone say, ahhhh, ask you how you do number 4 on homework 8, you know what you tell them? You tell them, ahhh, you go to hell!" Oh man, I hadn't laughed that hard in a while. I'm glad I have him again next semester!

The Next Step

Well, I'm making the physical therapy thing official. I haven't decided where I'm going yet, but have it narrowed down to two places. I might consider others if I hear back from some friends fairly soon, but right now the two players are Buffalo Run and KORT. Both seem to have physical therapists with very good resumes.

The former is a smaller group, but one of the therapists has an interest in running. The latter is a very reputable organization that is all over the state. I haven't seen any of their PT's profile's have anything about running, but I assume somewhere in their network is someone with an interest, and I could likely get sent to them if I need to. I'm going to give it a little thought tonight and give one of them a call tomorrow. If you've had any experience with PT's and know what I should be looking for, I would really appreciate any feedback.

When I got to the chiropractor today, they had their dog there. Since I was a few minutes early, I got to have a little fun and play with him while I waited! It was fun, but it reminded me that I want to get a dog still. I told Beth (Mike's wife) my story and she admitted to me she had this dog at an apartment that didn't allow them for a whole year, makes it tempting!

Today Mike pushed running on me a little too hard. He suggested going out for a run tonight or tomorrow to see how my hip reacts. Then he suggested it again. And again. Eventually he gave it up, I wasn't going to budge. I've been here for two months: I get back to feeling 95% recovered, I run, and I'm back to square one. He's the professional, but I've been living with it for the past two months. I can see the pattern. Us computer scientists are good at patterns.

I haven't cut things off though, not yet anyways. A.R.T. is very good for treating the symptoms I have. It will clear up the aches, at the cost of it hurting like hell for the time I'm in his office. Hopefully these aches will go away with some time off from running, and I can call it quits on the A.R.T.

Last night my left leg started tightening up on me. I'm not sure why. I stretched out my glutes and hammies pretty good, but it wasn't perfect. Today its still sort of there, and after A.R.T. my left leg is especially uncomfortable. Walking doesn't hurt necessarily, but it causes some discomfort, especially in my hamstrings.

I'm somewhat relieved that I'm officially on break from running. The highs and lows I have been going through the past two months were not pleasant at all. For now, at least, I'm happy living in the comfortable middle ground. Hopefully adequate rest and physical therapy will be enough to get me back to living the high life. I look forward to it.

Restful Weekend

I'm not going to lie. I have really rested this weekend. And by really rested, I mean I've been an absolute bum. It has been everything I had imagined it would be when I was working my tail off the past several weeks!

I've been doing a lot to try and fix up this hip. I'm hitting it with all I got. My legs are getting foam rollered (hey, thats a word whether you believe it or not, spell checker!) quite a bit, along with my back. As a result, my legs are feeling pretty good! Also, this roller is just the key thing I've been needing to pop a part of my upper back that really needed it!

Ice and heat has been a key component of my weekend too. I'm really hammering away at this hip, and its feeling good. It felt especially good after I slept for 11 solid hours Friday night. Yesterday I started up on the Medrol again, which helped it big time a month or so ago. Hopefully with a combination of adequate rest, ice, A.R.T., foam rollering, massage, Medrol, and low, easy mileage, we can finally get this injury to get on out of here!

Right now it feels pretty good. I haven't felt pain in it for a few days, although every now and then it feels 'off' and I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Maybe its in my head. I don't know. We'll find out in the end, hopefully.

Other than taking care of this hip, I've spent too much time playing video games and a little time practicing the juggling; its surprisingly addictive, and I'm starting to get kind of good at it.

Productivity wise, I got a lot of grading done today. After grading the lab tests and programs, I swore I had a big stack of quizzes to grade -- nope! It was all in my head. Nice surprise to end the day!

After this low key weekend, I'm feeling rested and ready to tackle whatever the world throws at me. I'm no longer in the zombie-like state of last week, which is a nice treat!

Right now my game plan is to run tomorrow evening, then I have A.R.T. after class on Tuesday. I've had five days completely off from running and biking, so hopefully it will be enough for it not to get too aggravated over a couple easy miles.

Update: Not running tomorrow. Mike is just going to have to deal with that.

More Recovery

This week has had a lot of focus on getting me back on the roads, but I'm not rushing the actual act of running. Not this week. I'm taking Nic's advice to take it easy for a little while longer.

Wednesday Mike really kicked my ass with some A.R.T. to break up the new spot that flared up in my hip. This time its a little further down the leg, closer to the bottom of the joint where my femur and pelvis meet. It doesn't hurt too much mechanically, but its very sore to the touch.

My run yesterday didn't happen. I simply didn't have time, and it wasn't a good idea anyways! I was working on homework until about 3am the past two nights, so squeezing in a run was only going to cut in on my minimal amount of precious sleep.

I did, however, make it in to get a massage to work out some kinks in my lower back and several spots in my legs. That massage worked wonders. Not just physically, but mentally. Beforehand I was just about as stressed as ever. If someone decided to yell at me like they did to Jess, I probably would have tackled them and punted their dog; it was that bad.

Afterwards, though, I felt completely in control. I had stuff to do, and I had time. I didn't feel exhausted, and could easily be productive. Sometimes simply feeling in control is all it takes to regain the focus I need to get my stuff done. In a sense I took Marcy's advice to get a butt massage, except I had to pay $60 to get it!

Today, another round of A.R.T. went pretty well. He took it fairly easy on me since I'm still sore from the last round. The one thing he really hammered on was my IT bands; now that smarted! To give me any idea of how tight my IT bands were, he pushed on my arm as hard as he was on my IT bands. The pressure was almost nothing, on my arm it felt like he was just poking me in the arm to get my attention.

Although he's encouraging me to get out and run this weekend, I really feel taking it easy until Sunday or Monday will really be best for my hip. I want all these sore spots to disappear before I even think about giving it another go. Until then, I'm taking it easy. This injury has been going on way too long, and a lot of it could be attributed to me constantly jumping the gun and trying to run too early. I'm done with that.

I got a foam roller finally, too. Right now I'm just using it on my back, quads, and hamstrings. The real reason I want it is to roll out my IT bands, but they're pretty sore from my treatment today, and really need to heal up before I hit them with the roller.

This has been one insane week. I'm not sure I've ever been that busy in my life, except maybe finals week once or twice. I'm glad its over. This weekend is completely devoted to resting up, because I need it more than anything!

On Top of the World

Today is my day. Everything has gone my way. I even rhyme, no matter what I say. Sorry, I'm a dork, okay?

I studied like crazy all weekend for a test that scared the crap out of me. So what did I do? Thats right, I rocked it! Then I got an assignment back that I spent 10-15 hours on, swore I bombed it, but nope! Rocked that one too!

Then I met up with Mike "The Man" Sullivan for a little work on my hip. I told him the whole story of my weekend with regards to my hip and what not, and he tried a few things today to set things straight. He had my lay face down, and lift each leg up in turn as high as I could. One leg went up about 7 inches higher than the other. Woah, somethings out of whack! So he worked some magic and suddenly they were both the same!

I mentioned the strange popping I'm having, and he had a hard time tracking down exactly where it was coming from. I had to reproduce the pop about 10 times before he gave up on finding exactly where it was. Regardless of finding it, he adjusted my lower back a little bit, and its pretty much gone now! I tried to reproduce it again afterwards, and it happened maybe once out of 20 tries, as opposed to the 10 for 10 beforehand.

My glutes are definitely loosening up too, since I've been good about giving myself butt massages. No, Marcy, I still can't find a lovely lady to do it for me. I've been asking every one I see but they all give me a weird look and walk away (joke!). Hopefully that'll be all cleared up after I stick with it for a few more days.

Mike is making it sound like I'm almost better. He's even talking like I should be able to resume training as usual this weekend! Oh man, here come the exclamation points! Right now he's suggesting meeting again this week, then once more next week, and then its over!

Also on the forecast: Rain! And lots of it! We're supposed to get an inch tonight, and another half inch tomorrow. Sounds like I'm going to be sloshing around tomorrow, getting all kinds of "what is WRONG with you?!" looks from people who melt when they get wet!

Round Three with A. R. T.

Well, theres good news and bad news. Lets start with the bad so I can finish on a good note!

The bad news is that my hip wasn't feeling all that great when I woke up. Not horrible, but not good. Maybe the 4 1/2 miles yesterday was too much (too fast) too soon? It felt good yesterday, even hours later. I thought getting out there really helped loosen everything up, but that all fell apart when I walked to class this morning.

The good news? Another problem area was found, and fixing it could help stabilize my hips a little more when I run, which will prevent more damage from being done. Basically, my glutes are two big knots right now. They don't hurt to walk with, but I think when I'm running my body is avoiding using them, which is straining everything else. He started working on them today, and they were more tender than the TFL in my left hip! I was told to stretch 2-3 times a day this weekend, then go for a one mile run to loosen things up and see how it does.

Also, my deductible is eaten up now, so return visits for more A.R.T. treatment are going to be cheap for me! $12 bucks a pop from here on out; hey, I'll take it!

Even though I was a little sore when I woke up today, I think progress is still being made. I felt worlds better this morning than I did a few weeks ago the morning after running. The problems are identified and just need to be fixed. I also know what I need to do to fix them, now all that is left is to execute the plan!

Game plan:

• Keep alternating heat and cold on my hip
• Stretch 2-3 times a day
• Go for an easy one mile run to loosen things up
• 30-40 minutes on the exercise bike
  
• Self massage for my glutes to try and get the knots out
• Put Biofreeze (Icy-hot off shot?) sample on my hip a few times
• More A.R.T. on Monday
• Massage on Tuesday or Thursday

Here's to a weekend of homework, stretching, homework, ice, homework, heat, homework, homework, homework, and rest.