Lockdown

Forgive me for not posting anything in over a week....I'm taking the MCAT a week from Saturday so I've been putting every second of free time into studying. To put it simply, I've been putting myself on lockdown. So I promise I won't take this long between posts after next Saturday :)

The knee/IT band was feeling better, then Sunday rolled around and it just felt kind of weak with a dull pain during the day. Same old same old, I'm more than used to it now. Well it has kind of felt that way since then. Today I went in the pool for the first time in a couple months and did 25 minutes of aqua jogging, and it actually felt decent after that. What about now? Well it's kind of in the middle of how it's been and how it was after the pool. It still is and probably will be a day-by-day process for a little longer.

Every Wednesday night, Playmakers holds a free injury clinic where a couple of physical therapists and a sports med doctor take questions about injuries and help point out solutions to the problem. My own problem is that I usually work on Wednesday nights so I never get a chance to ask them about my knee. Well tonight after we closed and as the PTs were packing up, I caught one of them and told them about my situation: It's 90% better but I can't get over that hump and I've been doing stretches and exercises galore to help alleviate the problem. Well she agreed with everything I mentioned as far as how to go about treating myself, and she also said that once in a while there's an injury like this that just takes time and patience. She said to keep on doing what I've been doing and things should take a turn for the better sooner than later. So if there's any optimistic news to come out of everything, it's definitely that.

Also after we closed, I was still helping a customer who couldn't decide whether to get the Asics 2120 or the Adidas Supernova, but I noticed everybody was lined up on the stairs posing for a group picture. Well apparently Playmakers won an award from Runner's World...what that award is, I don't know. But perhaps the picture will be placed in a future issue of Runner's World, so if you do see it then make a note that I'm somewhere else in that store ;)

That's all I've got for now...I'll end with a video from the other night that I just can't stop watching...

That's just how it is...

One of these days I'll actually write down my ideas when I think of them, that way I won't forget what I want to type about.

Really it's the same old story here, nothing new to report. I'm still in the rehab stage, but it seems now I've got more "fight in the dog", so to speak. In the past couple months I've been trying to go on the elliptical and have even done some runs outside/on the treadmill, and it just all took me back the drawing board because I wasn't completely healed yet. That's always been my problem with running, and I'm sure any other runner can relate to it - we just want to get back out there as fast as we can, hoping there will be no repercussions.

As of late, I've been very good to myself in keeping up with my exercises and stretching, as well as icing when the need surfaces. I've also been trying to be very good in keeping a positive attitude and having confidence that everything will be better sooner than later. Sometimes there's a rotten day placed in there somewhere, but I just have to look past that and get back on the fast track of optimism.

In the past week I've watched a LOT of sports, which is really pretty normal for me. But I've heard announcers in different games speak of (on at least 3 different occasions) an athlete who had a moderate to severe injury and took a lot of time off, and now they're back to playing again. And it may be weird that I heard of 3 cases such as this in the span of a week, but it made me think that I just happen to be one of those people as well. Did I wanna run the Boston Marathon this year? You bet your ass I did. Did I wanna some of the local 5K's this spring/summer? Heck yes. Are either of them going to be a reality? No on the marathon and probably not on the 5K's, and the hardest part has been telling myself that I'm not going to be running another race for a while...I was thinking July at the earliest, because once I recover I gotta build myself a solid base so that I don't rush back into things and hurt myself even more. But even July may be generous. That's just how it is...I ran the last 11 miles of the Detroit Marathon with the IT Band from Hell, so really I shouldn't be surprised that it has taken me so long to get back to normal.

And tomorrow's another day. As I lay down to go to sleep tonight, I'll do what I do each night and tell myself to be patient, that I'll be back out there before I know it. But right now I'm logging my miles on the road to recovery, and that's just how it is.

March Madness!

Well I really haven't done much in the way of aerobic exercise in the past week, save for a few miles on the bike, but I have been doing a bunch in the areas of stretching and strengthening. Specifically, I've been doing the most work on my legs and my core and I'm already noticing the difference. The knee/IT Band bug me from time to time but it's not an alarming pain or anything, so that's good. It's funny though because Annette hit it right on the nose - the days I've typed my most recent posts seem to have been on days where I sound like I wanna give up, but then after a day or two I find something to give me a little confidence and keep me battling. Just gotta keep on having patience and a postive outlook....

In unrelated news, I took my '96 Oldsmobile Ciera into the shop yesterday because the "check engine soon" light kept turning on and off in the past couple weeks and I noticed I was getting some engine hesitation. Well when the mechanic told me what was up after the diagnostic exam, he went through the list of everything that absolutely needed to be replaced or probably needed to be replaced in the near future. He mentioned the price of each thing separately and didn't say the total, but I bet it was gonna be over $2000 easy. We've put so much money into that car for repairs and such already, so my dad decided to just sell the car to the shop and lease another car for me to get around. Check it out...a 2007 Chevy Malibu :) It drives so much better than the old car, believe me. So that's been the big bright spot for me in the past couple of days.

And you know what else is a big bright spot? The NCAA tournament starts tomorrow! I'm like a little kid at Christmas, I can't wait anymore. Jess knows how I feel :) Too bad sitting in front of the TV won't keep me fit.

Same old story

Honestly I've had no motivation to post anything lately because it sort of seems like each post is the exact same nowadays. If there's one thing to report on this week, it's that I felt good on Tuesday so I tried 3 miles on the treadmill. I felt alright, not great, during the run, and that night and the next day (yesterday) were about the same. Then came today....my knee has been bugging me all day, on the lateral side where the IT band is. It's so frustrating because I am or have been doing everything that people have recommended in the past couple of months and none of it seems to be helping. I took the day off today from any workout and I've been icing the knee every couple of hours and it feels a little better....but still, it just sucks. If anything good has come out of the last week, it's that my arch pain has gone away.

In response to Eric...I've been trying to suck it up but it hasn't made things any better, and like you said, I'm still young and I (hopefully) have many years of running ahead of me. So, no need to rush back into things now and mess things up in the long haul. It all happened when I ran the Detroit Marathon back in late October (see this post) and I had some physical therapy after all of the swelling and most of the pain went away. It helped for the most part but there was only so much they could do in the best interest of my insurance and such that I still got some pain on the lateral condyle of my tibia where the IT Band attaches. Well now I don't have insurance because I was on my parents' plan and I graduated college in December, so I can't do more physical therapy without paying a bundle for it. Anyhow, I definitely have been doing a lot of work on the elliptical and the exercise bike to keep my fitness up....but I haven't done any swimming. That's something I definitely need to be doing for sure. And as of right now, I'm working on strengthening and stretching, specifically in the hip/glute area, in hopes of confirming the theory that knee pain begins at the pelvic area.

In any case, thanks for the advice. Hopefully next post I won't keep beating a dead horse...

More questions than answers

So it's not like I've forgotten to update the blog and write some posts, it's that I honestly haven't had any time to do it. Anyway, I'm gonna make this short because this is only a short window of free time that I have.

Really I could write a couple of paragraphs of what I did this week but it would just sound like the same old mush. Tuesday, though, was bad....I was a mess. All through the injuries I've been trying to stay positive and think of the bright side. On Tuesday I tried a couple miles on the treadmill and things felt relatively alright, but afterwards the foot sort of hurt and the knee was sort of aching. That all just made me so frustrated, and then MSU had to go lose to Michigan in basketball later that night. Let's just say I wasn't a happy camper.

Suzi from work gave me some good exercises to do that will strengthen my hip and gluteal muscles, so that's looking on the bright side. I was also reading an article in Runner's World about knee pain and how a lot of it can be related to imbalances in the hip muscles. Sooooo perhaps if I strengthen those then things will be much better. Only time will tell. It just sucks because I feel like I'm left with more questions than answers.