Who's Excited? I'm excited!

Hello fellow Team! So the official team Half is less than a month away. And I'm super excited! Although I wish I would be at the half starting line, I'll be really pumped when my team is. So update me on your weekend and your progress so I can live vicariously through you all. Feeling the burnout? Fear not! We are here to keep you motivated.

Here's a little quote I got from my tri board to remember to go out at your own pace - "Think you made the mistake of running too easy? You now have 26 miles to fix that mistake. Make the mistake of running too hard? That mistake now has 26 miles to express itself. DON'T EAT THE PASTE!" So when you start that half, think to yourself - don't eat the paste. Just cause everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you should.

This weekend I played volleyball for two hours and the rest of the weekend was OUCH! No acute injury. Just generalized pain, soreness and enough swelling to impede full range of motion. So I'm doing RICE and waiting for it to subside. But boy did I have fun! Luckily, no vb this week so I'll have some time to recover. ;) Plan on low-impact activites this week including a ride on Wednesday. The weather will be NICE - low 80s all week - so get outside and get some Vitamin D people! Wait, is it Vitamin D? I can't remember. Whatever.

This month will be the hardest so just keep your habits up and stay injury free!

Back in the Saddle

Yes, it's true! This weekend I did my first running since my injury. And it went well. I did a walk/run for 2 miles. But first, just to update on my previous post - I'm good. I was a little sad at having to withdraw, but overall I'm good. There's always more races! And I love despair.com. You should check out their stuff - some of it is outright laugh out loud funny!

Back to my run~ I was a little nervous. Things were not perfect - I had some 'heat' under the kneecap and slight soreness so I did ice afterwards, but the big thing is no real pain. Excellent. Some parts felt really good and I wanted to just keep running, but I kept telling myself, no it's better to take it slow and work on getting back to running long term. So I moved over to elliptical to finish the hour.

So I'm on to a new goal.

I'll transfer to the Tyler 5k and maybe if things keep looking up I'll be ready for 8 at the Trot. PT is going really well and things that I felt were really hard a month ago are showing me that I am actually progressing! Yay!

Hope your running week goes well!

Defeat...more than a state of mind

I did some calculations and in the interest of protecting myself at this crucial stage of getting back to running, I'll likely be bowing out of the Tyler Half.

My therapist and I talked last night after some examinations and I'm starting back running this weekend. But at no more than 2 miles on a track. Running only the straight sections and walking the curves. If I increase at 10% a week, which he fully believes I should stick to so as to avoid further injury during rehab, I am no where near even 6 miles in the seven weeks left until event day.

Since I am already registered, I could possibly walk the entire thing which might take somewhere near four hours. There might be a possibility I would run the first 4 miles and then walk from there. This would put me at about 3.5 hours. But I do know for sure I will not be running.

I'm reallllllly trying to keep upbeat because I was SO looking forward to completing this. But I have to remind myself there are other feats of festivus to be accomplished next year. Either way I'll still be at the finish line cheering and congratulating MM and MB!

Keep training and maybe we can do something in the early spring! And we might be able to do the Turkey Trot 8!

Physical Therapy

I went to my first physical therapy appointment last night. After an initial discussion and examination my PT (Jake) decided the best course of action is to work on core strength and range of motion exercises. Part of this is to try and prevent muscle atrophy so that going back to running will be easier after the healing process. He feels that if I pull back and keep up other cardio exercises that do not cause pain I should likely be able to return to normal recreational activities. The goal is to rehab without a surgical intervention.

Yesterday we did some biking to warm up and ultrasound. Then some quadricep strengthening exercises followed by core strengthening exercises. Lastly some calf exercises (to work on strengthening both above and below the joint.) I'll go twice a week for a while and he prepared a handout for me to do at home twice a day.

I like my PT, he is a marathoner and triathlete so he understands first hand the kind of stress my joints will endure and what is required for each sport. He is also very soft spoken and easy to work with so I'm optimistic this will be a positive improvement for me.

No running

Wow we need to get some posting going on here peeps!

Here's my update for the week. Monday night I went back to trying to run. I had no knee pain and did no running for the entire week before. The first .5 miles were fine and then BAM - sudden knee pain - the same pain from the week before in the same place. I only made it a few more minutes (I was trying to see if it would go away) and then decided to stop. I moved over to elliptical for 30 more minutes and felt defeated. So I've decided to see my ortho again and probably ask for an MRI to see if there is a structural injury (tendons or meniscus again, etc.). I want the expert opinion on how much running and when I should consider. I'll probably also get into a rehab clinic. So no more running until things are figured out. The soonest I could get in was next Wednesday morning.

Tuesday I went biking. Love it. Although it was HOT. Did 12.2 miles in 51 minutes. My saddle is killing me. My friend got a new saddle that she loves so we went to the store and picked one up on sale; I can't wait to try that out on Thursday. I also have a new cadence monitor which rules. It's the cateye cadence and it helps so much. I'm a techie and I wish I could afford all the very cool gadgets and disc wheels out there. Luckily, this was very reasonable. The nice RBM lady picked it out for me and didn't make me feel like a total non-cycling idiot like some of the hard-core reps at the Richardson location. Plan to swim tonite and it's a ride on Thursday.

Have a great week everyone-