"Poster Child"

That's what the physical therapist said.

Apparently a combination of the surgery going well and me doing what I was told lead to my knee looking damn good just five days after surgery. The PT couldn't remember seeing a knee with absolutely no swelling this quick before. He actually measured it vs. my other knee, and they were exactly the same.

That said, I like my new PT and the whole atmosphere at his place. At most PT's I've been to (and I've seen my fair share), it's always been the majority old folks who broke because they stopped using stuff or they fell. Every patient here was an athlete, and the therapists were high energy and motivational too. Bingo.

Today he started me out easy. We're working on basic range of motion and some simple exercises to wake things up a bit. From when I walked in, I went from bending my knee about 30 degrees to 85-90 when I left. We also did some exercises to make my quad more responsive, and I could flex it a whole lot more when I left than when I went in. I'm also supposed to drop the crutches unless I'm going a long distance.

Now I just have to go through this routine 2-3 times a day, and the progress should stay pretty steady. The plan is about 4 weeks of this fairly easy stuff while my knee heals, then we'll start working towards more fun stuff. Right now he said the goal is to be running in 3 months, but he thinks it could go quicker if this fast recovery keeps doing what it's doing.

Randomness

I just have a whole bunch of random stuff today. Enjoy.

Today was (probably) my last trip to the PT. I did schedule another appointment next week, but informed him I will probably call and cancel. I think the rest and strengthening exercises are what is bringing me back. I'm fairly certain the ultrasound and ASTYM aren't really making an impact at all, but if things fall apart, I'll go right back. Promise.

I'm doing more bike shopping again. Still looking at the same three bikes as before, with the exception of looking at the '08 Specialized Allez. I still have a little sticker shock going on, and am having a hard time bringing myself to drop almost a thousand dollars on the bike + accessories. Seriously. Thats a lot of money! I'm still leaning towards Specialized, though. The components are all around better than the other two bikes, and it is just a little bit more expensive. I'm going around later today and tomorrow to test ride all three bikes.

I stopped by and talked to one of the ride leader's from the local bike club to talk about different routes in the area. He busted out a folder that had at least 200 routes in it, and picked out the shorter ones for me to do. I picked his brain about a lot of biking stuff to try and balance out what would be the best choice.

My hip is feeling fantastic today, even after running yesterday! I'm feeling like this horrible road is almost over, as long as I'm patient in rebuilding my miles. Needless to say, I'm in the best mood in a long time!

Swimming tonight. I think I figured out my "sinking" problem from a few weeks ago, so it should go a whole lot better!

And.... some responses to various comments!

Bill -- I know exactly what you mean.

Marcy -- Since I MUST tell you, I weight 135 dripping wet. My metabolism is on crack, I exercise a lot, eat good, and haven't lifted weights for who knows how long. What do you expect?!

Nancy -- Don't get me started on this professor. I think "jerk" is very mild compared to what I could come up with!

Day 26 of 28

Today was my 26th rest day in a row, with regards to running anyways.

Right now I am feeling great. Occasionally one of the tendons in the front of my leg feels pretty tight, my PT says its likely my rectus femoris, which runs from the hip to the knee. It bothers me the most right after a shower, probably because the heat causes inflamation? Besides that, I have no other complaints at the moment. Much better than a few weeks ago!

I'm getting antsy to run, no doubt, but I'm going to put it off until Wednesday as I was advised to do by Rob. I'm thinking the first day back is going to be an easy two miles, around 8:00-8:30 pace. Heck, I doubt I can go much faster than that after taking a full month off! Hows this running thing work? I put one leg in front of the other? Then... do it again? Gah! So confusing!

Luckily I have plenty to keep me busy these next few days, so I shouldn't be getting too horribly antsy. After teaching class and going to class I'm heading back to Illinois! Although, I'm not going straight home. Not yet. I have people to visit on the way.

I'm making a pit stop in Champaign to visit a friend who goes to U of I. I foresee a night full of eating pizza, drinking beer, catching up for a while, and maybe playing some Guitar Hero?

Tuesday I finish off my drive home and get to see the family again! As soon as I get back I'm heading to my dad's office to get an X-ray of this hip, just to double check there isn't something wrong which has slipped by the PT thus far. Probably a good thing to have anyways when dealing with an injury as persistent as this one, right?

Then, finally, the big day! On Wednesday I finally get to run for the first time in almost a month! Right now I'm pretty optimistic, as is my PT. My dad also told me he had a similar injury several years ago, where it mostly healed up but had some really minor problems that stuck around for a while; until he ran. Once he ran, the remainder of the symptoms cleared up. I'm really, really, really hoping this is similar! I feel like this road has to be coming to an end soon. I mean hell, Dave tore three ligaments in his ankle and came back sooner than me!

See you all on the flip side!

Minor Triumphs

Today was pretty busy, hence me not posting anything until 11:41PM. Swimming went really poorly today. I started out the workout hungry, started to get heartburn halfway through, and for some reason all the good form I learned the past week completely disappeared.

Since I felt like crap afterwards, I decided to focus on the little triumphs today:

• I aced another assignment I swore I bombed
• I touched my toes without bending my knees for the first time in over 22 years
• I finished an assignment that I procrastinated way too long (see #4 from yesterday's post)
• I shared a lot of useful information on running with a girl at the PT's office who is planning to start running soon
• I stuck with the swimming tonight no matter how frustrated I got
• I have enough self control not to run until Wednesday, despite feeling truly injury free today
  

Debut Delayed

Well, running is delayed another week. But, in all honesty, it's probably for the best, right?

I had another appointment with my PT this morning, and he's telling me to take it easy with the running until I go home for Thanksgiving next week. So I have one more week to wait, although deep down I think I'm glad he's telling me to wait. He's the first person who has told me I need to hold off on the running. Until now, everybody else has been saying I need to try it out and see how it goes, even though I haven't felt like my body is ready for it. Maybe this extra week will be enough.

But I do have even more exercises to do now, just more to keep me busy! Right now I think I'm actually spending more time on my fitness than I was when I ran 40 miles a week. I have 90 minutes a day of stretching and PT exercises per day, ab workouts 3 times a week, and swimming about 5-6 hours a week. All in all we're talking about 18 hours a week, man does it add up fast!

Thats almost as many hours of training spent when training for an Ironman.

Crap, I said it out loud.

"I'm back!" Well, my appetite is, anyways!

My appetite back in full swing. I blame the swimming. For the past month or two, since my training decreased dramatically, my appetite has followed suit. I was actually eating as much as a normal human being for a while, about 2500 calories a day!

Without further a due, I would like to announce I just ate an entire pizza in one sitting. One thousand two hundred calories without flinching. In fact, I'm still kind of hungry. Maybe I'll go eat a horse. I guess getting back into working out after two weeks completely off will do that to me, eh? I'm kind of afraid of what will happen when I can pick up running again and am also swimming a couple times a week. My grocery bill is going to double!

I'm still considering making Wednesday my debut, after taking 21 consecutive days off from running. Tomorrow I meet with my PT, so I'm going to bounce the idea off him to see if two miles would be a reasonable risk to take. My hip has been feeling fan-freaking-tastic these last few days, although a different (but maybe related?) pain has popped up in my lower back on the opposite side. Its really minor, but worth etching in stone on the internet.

And yes, Weirdo-Who-Takes-Tons-Of-Pictures-In-The-Bathroom, I mean Marcy, I have been toying with the idea of triathlons. There is a lot of overlap between my running groups and the swim team I joined last week, the majority of which are triathletes. To be honest, I've been thinking about triathlons maybe a little more than I should be! Looking at my training and injuries, its pretty clear I have more energy than I should be applying just to running. Spreading my energy out over a few different sports might be the trick to really staying strong.

While toying with the idea of triathlons, I decided to take a really quick, brief glimpse at tri-bikes. Holy crap are they expensive, low end bikes run four digits! I think the high end ones cost more than my car is worth. Although, really, I get running shoes every 300-350 miles, which equates to about 6 pairs a year (assuming I stay injury free, ha!). If the bike lasted at least two years, I would be spending lass than I do on running shoes.

Bill and Jess, I'm clueless to what my 'secret' is. This summer as an intern at Caterpillar this it was exactly the same way; nearly all female friends, but hey, I had people to bike and go rock climbing with! If anybody can tell me my 'secret', let me know and I'll do it more, maybe I could break out of this single status and get me a free butt massage? (free like a puppy!)

And finally, I need to send a HUGE congratulations to Bill for running a 2:58:20 marathon. With DEAD EVEN splits between the first and second halves. Who else can do that? No one, thats who! Go check out his race report, complete with a picture of him looking like the super hero he is!

Two Month Anniversary

For the majority of our lives, we have simply co-existed mostly unaware of each other's presence. Its hard to believe its been two months already. Two months since the sweet nothings were whispered in my ear: "HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEE!!!"

Yep. Good old Helen Hip. Wonderfully irritating. Our other high moments include her saying "I want a massage!!!" and "Buy me something!!!!" (usually drugs). Lately she has mostly quieted down, since I started getting abusive with ASTYM and paying people to nearly skin her alive. It seems to make her behave a little more. Although after biking on Tuesday she piped up with her usual "Stop making me work so hard! I'm tired! My feet hurt!! Why don't you love me anymore?!?"

Since biking is starting to make her grouchy, I've decided to cut that out of my plan for a little while. In a few hours, I'm going to try and drown her in the pool. Hopefully it will at least keep her quiet. If it does, I'm going to keep at that several times a week and see if we can simply co-exist as we were doing for the past 22 years.

Okay. I'm all out of metaphor.

Today was my third day of ASTYM. I'm starting to feel pretty good, even after my hip acting up yesterday. I'm attributing it to biking, and today my physical therapist, Chris, said my injury sounds similar to one he sees in a lot of endurance bikers. So, that means no biking. This swimming thing really better work for me, or I'm going to be going real crazy, real soon.

You might also notice that in my first three visits to the PT, I have seen three different people. The bouncing around is almost done, since I believe Rob's life is settling down enough for him to get back to work, and fixing my hip! Although it has been a nuisance to switch PTs the way I have been, it has been nice to see other people with varying experiences think this is the best route to attack my problem with.


Best of luck to Bill this Saturday at the Richmond Marathon! He's trained his butt off this year, and I think he's ready to go under three hours. The weather is looking perfect for him, the forecast says 44 degrees at the start, and 52 degrees at the finish. Almost no chance of rain, and wind varying from 3-7 mph. It doesn't get much better than that! Go get 'em, Bill! You the man!

Back At It

I took these last two weeks completely off. No running, no exercise bike; I was letting my body just heal up without needing to recovery from workouts. To the untrained eye, it may have appeared I was being lazy. Maybe to the well trained eye too, but anybody who claims I was being lazy, I'm just going to accuse of not having a well trained eye! Ha!

Today I finally at least jumped on the exercise bike. It was good. Real good. As boring as it is to work my tail off to stay in one place, it felt wonderful to have everything in motion again: heart beating, legs pumping, my body being turned into one big gatorade filter. Gotta love it! Surprisingly enough, I haven't lost that much fitness over these past few weeks of being a bum. I ended up going 11.02 miles in 30 minutes, not too shabby! Don't crunch the numbers Marcy, you'll only find out that I 'smoked your ass'!

Also, yesterday I mentioned thinking of switching physical therapists, and the decision has already been made. But not by me. By my PT's wife. Or, well, technically it was made by their baby who decided to be born yesterday! Since he has so much going on, I'm getting shifted around to a lot of different PT's within his group. I'm not complaining, though, because after seeing other therapists I think I will better be able to tell who I like best.

The verdict after today, though, is that I like this new guy better. Nothing against Rob, but I think the new PT has a lot more experience with runners. He mentioned several times today similar experiences with other runners, and although he acknowledged I don't sound like an easy case, he made it sound as though it was very manageable.

He explained it pretty well, too. Essentially the bursa sacs (inside the joint where the pelvis and femur meet) and the IT band can aggravate each other in endurance athletes. But it turns into a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" problem, since the IT band can become inflamed and irritate the bursa sacs, or vice versa. So the solution? Treat both, and also strengthen the entire area.

It makes sense to me, and I feel like we really have a handle on it. He also suggested a general game plan, and, um, it sounded almost identical to what I posted yesterday. Maybe I do know what I'm talking about, despite being injured for the last 2 months? His suggestion was to start being active again with biking and swimming, then next week run 1/3 of my goal mileage for the end of therapy, which is 10 miles. From there we continue to add mileage until I'm up to my goal of 30 miles/week by the end of therapy.

Tomorrow: more time on the bike, maybe 40-60 minutes. Thursday: The swimming begins. Its good to be back to being active!

Winter Goals

This was the first week I had to bust out my winter coat. That means its time to bust out my winter goals, too. Everybody else is doing it, what are you waiting for?

Here they are:

• Stick to my list of physical therapy exercises/stretches as if it was a religious document and I was the pope
• Regain the 5 lbs of muscle I've lost since graduation
• Make ab and core workouts a habit
• Slowly rebuild my mileage up to 40-50 miles per week. Slowly being the key word.

Thats it. Four goals. But each one is doable and will have a significant impact on my running and general fitness. The gaining of weight is probably a very foreign topic to most people. But I, apparently, live in a very different part of the galaxy! Gaining weight is a very difficult thing for me to do; my metabolism is naturally very fast, I (ideally) run 40-50 miles per week, and don't eat much junk food at all. I'm sure you'll agree with this goal after looking at the before picture!

Although I am not part of SLB's Running Through Th3 Wall Challenge, I am going to post my before pictures. It'll help keep me on track. And as usual, no smiling is allowed in the before picture, because that makes the after picture look that much better! Seriously, have you ever seen anybody smile in a before picture?


Putting those running shorts on for the picture sure felt good. They haven't been on for a while. In fact, I still have them on. Call it nostalgia. Maybe I should go grab my mylar blanket from Chicago too?

Notice that none of my goals involve races. Not yet. I am not looking at any races until I can painlessly run 25 miles in a week. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Previously, I was considering the Myrtle Beach marathon in February, but it definitely isn't happening due to the amount of time I have needed to take off. The half at Myrtle Beach is a possibility, but I am not even considering it an upcoming race until I can run pain free. My goals listed above are much more important than any race, for now!

The chips are on the table. Its time to get to it!

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!

Physical Therapy: It Begins

I decided to go with KORT for my physical therapy. I like the idea of them being a bigger organization, in case I stump one guy, it should be easy to get transferred to another one without huge problems.

So far, I like what I'm seeing. My PT, Rob, isn't a runner, but he seems to know his stuff. He's also very good at explaining at exactly what is going on with my problems, and the technique he is trying to fix it. I like understanding it, its my body after all! He seemed surprised that I, unlike every other runner, was okay with taking time off. It just took me two months to come to this nightmare-ish realization!

He did some strength tests on my legs, and my left leg is significantly weaker than my right in a lot of areas. Especially when it comes to my abductors and TFLs. Hopefully with some exercises, stretches, and some persistence on my part we can get this part of the puzzle fixed. I'm doubting this is the whole problem, but it is a problem to address.

Also, he's trying a technique called ASTYM. I don't remember what it stands for, except there wasn't a word for the Y. He said I was the first patient to ever ask about that, ha! ASTYM is used to break up scar tissue. I'm not overly enthusiastic about it, because, well, thats what A.R.T. was for too. The main difference is that it is done to the entire leg, not just the problem area.

Man, did that stuff hurt. He put something on my leg, cocoa butter, I think he said it was, and then used these plastic tools to break up the scar tissue in my leg. He mentioned girls don't like to have it done usually, because of how it really bruises up the leg. At first I was thinking "aha! Those silly girls!" but yeah, it really bruised up my leg; no joke! I might take some pictures of my leg later just to get some revenge on Nic for posting the picture of his disgusting toe!

But there is more to the ASTYM system than simply skinning me alive. I also have to drink lots and lots of fluids; but I already have that covered. I don't think I've peed anything with color in it for years. Okay, maybe its not THAT bad! There is a list of 8-10 stretches I need to do 4 times a day, too. I like this, too, because its very specific about what I can do on my own time to help my recovery. Before it was just "well, don't run. Or do. Whatever." Now I have a checklist I can go through. I can be very, very active about my recovery.

I also have a patch on my hip for the next 24 hours or so. Its pumping it full of steroids, hopefully helping it heal up a little bit. The medicine I was on recently was steroidal, and seemed to help. With the patch, though, it stays in this immediate area and is much more focused. Hopefully this change will make it help even more.

For now, I have several days until our next appointment on Tuesday. Until then, just a lot of stretching, hydrating, icing, and dreaming about being back on the roads.


On a completely unrelated note: Marcy, the Google result for "butt massager" was so your fault. The text Google found was from YOUR comment! And yes, when I looked at the search page, there were very, ah, interesting things surrounding my blog. My search was listed as slightly more relevant than vibrators. Thanks Google!

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.