Seventeen days later...

Don't worry, I'm still alive. I just had to take a break from everything in the past couple of weeks. Now that the MCAT and everything that goes along with it is over, I got more hours at work, plus I'm helping tutor a friend in a physiology class so I've had to actually keep on reading/studying things. So I've been busy but I'm back now and trying to recap the past couple of weeks...

I went to Boston, that was pretty fun. In a way, I was so glad that I wasn't running because the weather was pretty crappy. That Sunday night was cold and rainy and windy, and it just got worse overnight. I kept waking up in the middle of the night before the marathon because the wind kept whipping against the window, and I knew my sister was waking up too. Race day wasn't too bad....I mean it was raining at the beginning and my sister said she got downpoured on from miles 5-7, but I stood out at Boston College at mile marker 21 for a good 2 hours and it was completely dry. The only bad part was the gusty wind in the runners' faces. But anyway, she finished in 4:18, 30 minutes slower than she ran it last year. No doubt the wind had some impact on that....here's a pic of her going into the distance at mile 21...


This past Sunday (the 22nd) was the first 5K of the 2007 Playmakers Race Series - the Race For The Place 5K on the campus of MSU. So being the running-deprived kid that I am, I went out and watched it. Three guys that I work with were running it so I wanted to cheer them on anyway. This was the race that I set a PR at last year and also happens to be the picture in my profile, so I was a bit sad about not being able to run it, but that's life. Anyway, my co-worker Jake won it in 16:01 - as you can see in the picture. You can probably also see what a NICE day it was - sunny and in the 70's - whereas last year was rainy and in the low 50's. Jake is such a nice guy who's not cocky and arrogant at all, he's just fast. I was talking to him afterward, and he said the 16:01 was just a hard training run for him. Yea, I wish I could say that too...

Today was the second race in the series, the Race For The Cure 5K in Lansing. I wasn't able to watch this one because I had to work, but Jake swung by before we closed to pick up some stuff and he still had his racing shorts and singlet on. So I asked him how he ran, and he was like "Oh....good." So I was like "You won, didn't you?" and he smiled and was like "Yea..." Haha, he's modest too.

You're all probably kind of wondering about my knee too, huh? Well...I don't really have any good news, though I wish I did. That's also part of the reason I had no motivation to write any posts in the past two and a half weeks because nothing was happening. This past Thursday it just seemed to hurt a bit more and give new meaning to two steps forward and one step back...it should be more like three steps back in my case. It's so frustrating because I've been trying every trick in the book such as using a foam roller, strengthening adductors/abductors/hip muscles, stretching on a daily basis, etc. and I'm not seeing any results. Today marks exactly six months since the Detroit Marathon where everything turned to shit, and I'm still not back out there. So I've decided I'm gonna call the doc tomorrow and see what he can do for me since I really don't have insurance right now. It's a complicated situation for sure, but every day I try to keep a positive attitude about it. I even had a couple of people tell me the other day that they're frustrated for me. It's definitely great to know that I have some support, but it would be so nice to be healthy again and not actually need that support. Soon...that's what I keep telling myself.

We are the champions!

Congrats to the 2007 national champion Michigan State University hockey team! More details at the end of this post... :)

Soooo I took the MCAT last Saturday. It actually went alright, it was everything I expected it to be. I had taken a Kaplan course this time around, and they did an excellent job at getting me prepared for the exam and more making the most out of my potential. I breezed through the first section (physics and general chemistry) with only some minor hitches and that gave me a lot of confidence for the rest of the exam. The next section is verbal reasoning where you read a passage and they ask you questions like "What was the purpose of the passage?" or "What did the author mean by this?" Stuff like that....that's always my worst section, so I felt pretty average on that. The third section is two writing samples based on prompts that they give you, and I felt alright on that too. The last section (biology and organic chemistry) was a little harder than I was hoping, but I finished with some time to spare so I went back and reviewed some questions. As I was doing that, I didn't see any good reason why I would've changed my answers to an alternative answer....so that made me feel better in the end. Overall, it was a good experience. It was really quiet and everything went as planned. Now all I have to do is wait a month for my score to arrive!

Some guy came into Playmakers last night, and it was so bizarre with the story he was telling me: He ran the Detroit Marathon last October as his first one, and he hurt his knee around mile 15. Sound familiar? He said he had pain in the same spot as me too. I thought that was the weirdest thing ever, that his story was the same as mine. Well, to a point. He only had minor pain, and he's been running steadily since then, while I've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a chance to play.

I'm going to Boston on Sunday morning and meeting my sister there. I know I'm not running, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. We're gonna hit the expo that afternoon obviously, and then get a good pasta dinner someplace, so it should be fun. I have NO idea what I'm gonna do on Monday while my sister is running! Maybe I can sleep in or something....or I could just tour the city by myself, I don't know. Jess is leaving me hanging, she's not going :) Haha, I'm sure it'll be a good time anyway. I'll be sure to get some pictures in any case.

Alright well I can't think of anything else that I wanted to say, so I'll end with a video of the good points in the hockey national championship game last weekend. The first part is the MSU goalie Jeff Lerg making a spectacular save to keep it 1-0 in favor of Boston College. The next part is MSU scoring to tie it at 1, and the third part is MSU scoring the winning goal with 19 seconds left in the game. Good stuff :)

"Sometime" is too long

You may scan over to the right side and notice that I have some miles for this month...but they're from water jogging, no worries.

I really didn't find out anything new on Wednesday night. The lady I had talked to last week wasn't there this week, so I had to see somebody new. I mean it's free, so why not? I told the new PT (I forgot his name...) my story, and he tried those fibular head mobilizations on me. They seemed to work a little when he did them, but the feeling didn't last long. And he also basically said what the lady said last week - keep doing what I'm doing, sometimes these things take a long time to heal.

So really that's about it. I really have nothing else to post about that. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the MCAT! It should be a good time for sure. Haha...

And if any of you care about hockey, check out Michigan State vs. Boston College in the NCAA hockey championship game Saturday night at 7 eastern...THAT should be a good time for sure.

Solving the riddle

Well if there's one thing that makes my knee feel somewhat better, it's definitely swimming in the pool. So I'm making that a Mon-Wed-Fri deal for the near future. I was talking to somebody about my injury the other day and was explaining to them how I've been trying everything in the book, but nothing has seemed to get me over the top and past this injury. I likened it to a riddle and I'm trying to find clues to solve it. Or it's also like those hard-as-hell Sudoku puzzles that you just get so frustrated with and wanna throw the book at somebody...but there's something inside of you that KNOWS there's a logical way to solve it so you just keep plugging away at it.

Ok well maybe that was a stretch...but you get the gist of it. While I was working on Saturday, I felt like I found another little clue. One of the PTs at the clinic I went to for physical therapy came in and he was wondering how I was doing, since the last time he saw me was at the clinic. I gave him the rundown and he was sympathetic that I'm not running Boston, but I told him the current information about how it's feeling now...

I don't think I've said too much about it in recent posts, but I get some pain on the lateral condyle of my right tibia every now and then...which makes sense because that's where the IT Band inserts. I also get pain on my fibular head too, but that pales in comparison to the tibia, and sometimes I feel like I have pain on the tendon of my biceps femoris (lateral hamstring...which inserts on the fibular head). So there's pain in those two places...I also get this feeling of weakness/tightness all the time in the area proximal and lateral to the lateral condyle of the tibia. So on my right leg, it's up and to the outside...in case some of you don't know anatomical terminology. Also, during times when my knee is flexed (such as when I sit for a while or when I curl up when I sleep), I can start to feel my pulse in that area. I know that it is part of the imflammatory response...but honestly, what is it still repairing??

If anybody has any insight to any of that, let me know. Anyway, I told Chris (the PT) all of that and he wondered if I had sprained my ankle recently. I said no, but he said that may have screwed up the alignment of my fibula if that was the case. We discussed it a little bit more, but eventually he had to go and he told me to go back to the injury clinic this Wednesday and talk to the one PT I talked to last week. He told me to ask her about "fibular head mobilizations"....so I guess I'll soon figure out what those are. So hopefully I'll have some good news after Wednesday.

All in all, I feel like my patience has been tested, BIG time. And I just gotta keep on keeping on, so to speak. This past Thursday marked 5 months since the injury occured, so part of me is getting really frustrated. Especially when I see people running outside because it's getting warmer, and friends ask me if I wanna go running with them, not realizing that I'm still on the injured list. Patience...

"Something tells me that this is going to make sense,
Something tells me it's going to take patience,
Something tells me that this will all work out in the end."
--"The One I'm Waiting For" by Relient K