They Call it a Bruised Bone

Great news came out of my ortho appointment yesterday: No meniscus tear, just bruised bones.

THANK YOU!

And the doc didn't think I was crazy to do NYC. He said that he understood how crazy we, runners, are.

He said that bruised bones take about 6 weeks to heal. I'm sure that with a marathon mine will take longer. I'll stop running a few days if the pain gets back to the level I had two weeks ago. There's still minor pain, but barely.

And with that news, guess who went for a run last night?

I meant to go 5 to 10 minutes but once I got running turned it into 30. If you're a runner then you know that there's no way to replace that feeling that you get on the roads.

It feels nice to be back.

Fridays

Thank you for your words and encouragement in the comments of my last post. My knee is feeling better this week but not 100%. The pain has greatly subsided since my last post and I can walk up and down stairs normally again. I have an appointment on Monday with an orthopedist and am so hoping that there is some good news out of it. I've stopped Googling meniscal tears as they only lead me to believe that I will need surgery and will not be running NYC next month.

It's been hard this week to not run. It's been hard to go to practice and watch my kids do workouts knowing that I'm stuck there taking their splits rather than joining them.

It was hard to walk back from my car today, feeling the 89 degree warmth that this October day brought, and knowing that I can't go on my normally much-anticipated Friday run. I love running in the fall and I always look forward to Friday runs. For me, they far surpass any happy hour and are the perfect way to end a workweek.

This afternoon I noticed the trees and the grass that are drying up due to the lack of rain and the oncoming cooler weather that awaits us. The shorter days means the leaves are finally changing their colors even though I still sit here in shorts in a tank top. There is nothing more that I want to do than to run right now before the winter air comes.

My body and mind are ready to run. I crave to get back into nature and to feel the wind on my face and my feet flying over the leaves.

But that has to wait.

Every day I battle with myself: What if I don't have a tear. What if I'm making my knee worse by not doing anything with it? What if I just try to run for 5 minutes?

But - what if I try to run and the first step I take brings back the pain from Saturday and I've set myself back a week?

I'm constantly reminding myself of my goal. Monday is only three days away. I can and should be able to wait that long to find out if I can run or if I have something more serious. Usually I am confident that I can wait. And then 5 runners go by me on the walk to my car. It sucks to live in such a healthy city. Everyone is out there running.

Sometimes we don't take for granted what we have until it is taken away. I like to think that this year has fully taught my to appreciate what I have. I knew each day that I went running that I would not be doing it some day. If you're complaining about having to run or to workout, remind yourself of the good things it brings you. What would you do if the ability to do it was taken away?

S'mores and Staying Busy

*How about a little random for your Thursday.....*

To start off, it's my dad's birthday today!! I can't believe how fast the year has gone. Wishing I could be up in VT to celebrate with him. It's so weird to be down here and not there with him today.

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I had my first run yesterday without pain. No hamstring pain. No foot pain.

And there was no pain again this morning. I don't want to get too excited about it since the pain has come back each time this has happened over the last few months, but I'll take it.

If you've wondered why there has been little talk of running on the blog over the last few months then see above. PAIN. There's nothing to say about 4-5 mile runs that are sometimes plagued with hamstring and foot pain. This paragraph alone summarizes my running over these months: run a few days, take a few days off, race, take a week off, blah blah blah.

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Keep reading - we're getting to these amazing things....

Am I the only one who loves naps? I seriously only need 15 minutes am I'm good. I used to rush home after XC practice my senior year at UVM, shower, nap for 15 minutes, eat, then go to class. It kept me awake for the rest of the day - no falling asleep in physics or whatever I was taking at the time.

Now I find myself taking a nap almost every day that I'm not in school and I don't want to keep that habit going all summer.

Finally, yesterday I discovered how to stay awake all day. Who am I kidding - I knew this all along. The secret is...

STAY BUSY!

For example, if one wanted to stay awake for an entire day, they could wake up at 6:30 and proceed to the following activities:

 eat breakfast, run, shower, write two blog posts, catch up with a childhood friend from VT, call your dad and talk for an hour, make beef stew (only Tom would request this in 90 degree weather), eat lunch, hang a mail-center thing your brother made you for Christmas (photo to come), walk to the bakery for bread and graham crackers, spontaneously make an amazing summer desert with those graham crackers (thank you Jacquelyn!), decide that you still have not spent enough time in the kitchen and proceed to make a batch of pizza dough, play with your amazing orange furry friend that likes to play fetch again, pay bills, clean the kitchen from your earlier mess, and wash two loads of laundry - but don't fold them because your orange furry friend decides he likes the full-laundry basket as his bed better than anything else and stays in there until you go to bed 5 hours later....

Reason #1 why clothes don't get folded: he will grab the shirt I'm folding, pull it toward him, and begin to  bite it

Reason #2 why clothes don't get folded: A bag full of warm clothes = most amazing bed ever, especially when placed under a ceiling fan

Yep, that takes you to about 5:30. Along with an hour or two to read the headlines or to get distracted by facebook/blogs.

My favorite part of the day was finally sitting down to have dinner, finishing said dinner, and then surprising Tom with the frozen s'mores from Marin Mama Cooks :)

You know you want to make them. Trust me, you really do. The crunch of the crackers, the chewiness of the frozen marshmallows, the cold chocolate - they make the perfect summertime treat even without a campfire. And she wasn't kidding when she said they're highly addicting. They really are. 

A Reason to Never Play Soccer

Up until 5th grade I was always jealous of my friends that played soccer. But do you think I ever told my parents that I wanted to play? NO! That's not how I roll...

But it's actually a good thing I didn't tell them. I found out some things about my foot this morning and have been told specifically to never play soccer. Also - to expect arthritis in my big toe when I'm older.

Let me take you back to April when I took a few days off of running right before the Nike Women's race to try to heal some foot pain I was feeling. Turns out, I didn't need rest but rather to run a half marathon and then the pain would disappear for a few days.

After Burlington, I took two weeks off to finally heal the hamstring injury and the foot pain. Wouldn't you know, the foot pain continued. But it didn't stay in one spot. No, it has moved around my darn right foot for the last few months. Over the weekend it started to get much worse and yesterday on my run I had enough. It was actually painful, not just a dull pain that I had when I was sitting. It began to hurt each time I landed. And it hurt a lot.

You may be thinking, why didn't I just go to the doctor sooner? For one, there was no chance of me taking time off of work. Once school got out I started the doctor search. It was made a little more difficult by the fact that I don't know any doctors here in DC and every doctor I managed to find and call were out of network with my insurance. A simple call to an office took hours and days of research, especially when I added on the review-checks on Yelp, to make sure I was seeing someone good.

Somehow I lucked out this morning in search and got someone who is not only a podiatrist, but can also make orthotics. My chiropractor informed me in February that I was 6 years overdue for new ones, so I wanted to be able to kill two birds with one stone: new orthotics and to get the foot pain checked out.

I called the office up at 10:00 am and somehow got an appointment for 11:30 am. Same day appointments never happen for me. Like - ever.

After looking at my foot, my current orthotics, and an x-ray, this is what I learned this morning...

1. The doctor was surprised that I had never sprained my ankle with my orthotics because they were too high. My next ones will be much lower.
2. I broke my fourth toe at some point (the one next to my pinky toe) but I don't remember when. He showed me the actual bone growth on the x-ray, which was fascinating.
3. The joint to my big toe is 1 cm higher than all of my other toe joints. This means that I will probably get arthritis there. He's hoping he can design the orthotics to lower that joint so they're all more aligned. I was also instructed to never play soccer, since the force from kicking the ball will move my joint/toe and make it worse. Running, however, is a go! Now that he's pointed this out on the x-ray, I can actually see the difference on my foot. The left foot seems normal, but the right is odd :( 
4. There's no exact reason for the pain I'm feeling in my foot. It could be a small bone in the middle of my foot which may be helped by the orthotics.... but may not? He added some padding to my current orthotics to test out while we wait for the new ones to arrive. 
5. I must keep a detailed log of the foot pain so that when I see him in a few weeks I can update him. 
6. No flats. No sandals. I need some elevation to my shoes. Sounds like he's giving me the go-ahead to go shoe-shopping!

Oh the things you can discover with an x-ray! I was ready for him to look at the other foot and my hands to learn more. There aren't any problems, but I am fascinated by what you can see with them. 

As for now, I'm going to make sure to keep icing the foot. This has been quite the year for injuries. The more I want to run, the less I am able to. I don't actually know if I'll be able to start NYCM training on Monday like I'm supposed to but I keep reminding myself that it will be better to start late than to take time off in the middle of training. 

Looking Forward: NYC Marathon 2013 and Summer Running Goals

People keep asking me what I am going to do this summer now that the last week of school has arrived. My plans include cleaning and organizing for the next year of teaching, hitting up the library every other day to get a new book, cooking lots of dinner for Tom to make up for this whole year of dinners he cooked, and to train again for the NYC Marathon.

I am going to go with the Hanson plan once again this summer. I also have a few goals to go along with it.

1. Wake up when Tom gets up so I can get out the door by 7am each morning and do my runs. No waiting until 9 or 9:30. Last summer was too hot and I was stupid for not completing early morning runs before the heat hit.
2. Race this summer. I want to get in some 5ks. And with that.....
3. Get a PR in the 5k.

Yeah, that's a big one. I have been OK with my 5K PR since I got it during my junior year of college. Then this spring I realized that I am so capable of a better one. I'll need to get in speed. And I'll need to make sure I'm over with the hamstring injury.

Three weeks ago I had an intensive Graston treatment that left my leg QUITE bruised, but made it feel 10x better than before.

I haven't run since last Sunday, and don't plan on running until Saturday. I've already noticed a lot of the little veins that popped up this winter (after the treatment) are gone, and so I hope that means that the area is finally healing itself. Tomorrow I go back to PT for my two week check-in, and hopefully one of the last treatments.

I'm trying to be smart now so I can get the results I want. I hope it'll be a good summer of training and that I can continue to see my times go down. But for now, I'm staying busy with final exams and end of the year packing!

It was the Shoes!

Five months ago I would have thought that I would be on here today writing about a 15 mile run or how fast a tempo workout went.

But I am still recovering from my hamstring injury.

I am still going to PT and am still foam rolling. However, what has changed in the last three days is the pair of shoes I'm running and how much pain I am feeling.

On Friday I went back to a new pair of Asics GT-2170s and put away the Asics GT-2000s, which I had been wearing since October. If you do the math, that is about 5 months ago. When I got injured!!

After switching up the shoes I am now able to run practically pain-free on my runs. It is amazing! I ran each day over the last three days and didn't feel any pain!!

And yet, I am a little disappointing to find this out after so many months of horrible running. Nothing I can do to change those months so I have to focus on my current running. And on stockpiling as many Asics GT-2170s as I can find before they're all gone and I won't have a reliable running shoe. Argh. Who would have thought that a running shoe would make THAT much of a difference??

I've been working on increasing the weekly mileage bit by bit each week. Last week I had 24 miles and was happy to get in a decent weekend of mileage. Decent, because that would actually have been the type of mileage I would run daily while training in the fall. Ideally I would have more mileage on a weekend.

Baby steps. Baby steps. I have to keep reminding myself of baby steps.

Today I got in my first 8 miler in months and this week I got in 27 miles, which is the most mileage since the Philly Marathon! I'm happy. The goal for next week is to break 30 miles a week.

Again - baby steps.

I actually like that I am getting back into running just as spring is arriving. There are tons of little flowers and daffodils popping up all over the city. The trees are starting to bloom and I'm getting more and more excited for the cherry blossoms!

Speaking of cherry blossoms, Tom and I are both doing the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in three weeks from today. I'm hoping to get up to 10 miles in my training runs, build on some more mileage each week, and perhaps get in some speed workouts.

And the speed may be easy to get because I just took on an assistant coaching job at our high school and will be working with the track team! I love working with the kids. We (coaches) push them to push themselves and they inspire me to push myself harder! 

I'll Call it a Success

This week was a success. I had the most productive running week in weeks!

Weekly Total: 17 miles

My weekly mileage is not what I thought I would be running at this time back in December. However, I am happy about those miles considering that I wasn't running at all last week. 

Monday: 2 miles at 8:05 pace

I had the day off of school and a PT appointment schedule for later in the day. Even though I had some pain in my leg before the run, I went out anyway. Was so happy to get rid of the pain within the first minute and a half and had a great time being out there once more. I was really shocked at the ability to run pain-free again. 

Tuesday: 2 miles at 8:02 pace

Ran a super-cautious run. I was very worried that I was going to be too ambitious by running two days in a row. I didn't feel any pain, but my leg was pretty tight from the PT appointment. I made sure to foam roll and ice as soon as I got home. 

Wednesday: 3 miles at 7:36 pace

I'm not sure why I picked up the pace on my third day of running, but I felt awesome. It was quite cold for DC and very windy. Lately all of my runs start with me heading out into the wind, so I wasn't able to warm up until I turned around and was heading home. My leg was still tight and it was on this night that Tom ordered me to take a day off. He was also worried that I was being too ambitious. 

Thursday: Off

Friday: 4 miles 

A co-worker and I motivated each other to go for a run after school. I would never have gone out there if it wasn't for her. It wasn't raining when we started, but it started to rain, and even hail, by the mid-point. We stopped at another co-worker's house for a bit then bummed a ride back to school so that we wouldn't have to run back. We're hoping that we can make this a weekly occurrence!

Saturday: off

Sunday: It was 50 and sunny. A great day for a run. Was super happy to run 5.6 miles. Took it slower (8:01 pace) and could not believe how out of shape I felt. I have been consuming much less water on a daily basis ever since January and I really need to get back in the habit of drinking more water. 

I'm hoping next week will be just as great and that I can continue to increase my daily mileage. I really want to get in a few double-digit runs before the 10 mile race at the start of March, but I don't want to increase mileage so quickly that I get re-injured.

Return to Running

There is some good news on this Monday (besides the fact that I had it off from work). I ran 2 miles - pain free. It was the most mileage I have done in a single day in about three weeks.

I cannot tell you how excited I am. Especially since a week ago at this hour I was writing a blog post that I never published. It was a blog post about how much pain I was in. The most pain I had ever had from this injury. It was a blog post about how I ran after my PT appointment even though I was in such pain, and how stupid it was for me to do so. I wrote about how I wanted nothing more to run, since running helps keep me sane. Makes me relax. Helps me focus. I was angry. I was sad. I was not liking life.

Last week was a rough week. And not running only made it worse.

But it is a new week and things are looking up. Even though I had some pain prior to running this morning, I still went out. And after 1:30 minutes of running the pain was gone. And I haven't felt it since.

I told all of this to my Physical Therapist this evening. He wasn't surprised that I was in such pain after last week's appointment. I still am though. I thought my leg was getting much worse.

After he did my treatment tonight, he commented that my leg is feeling much better. I told him that the treatment no longer hurts like it used to. A sign of success.

Instead of meeting twice a week like I have been, I will only be going once a week. And if things are still good next week then he'll push our appointment dates to two weeks apart. This. is. awesome.

My week already feels so much better because I can look forward to running again. It's the first time in months that I can ask myself "ohhhh what am I going to run tomorrow?" instead of, "I want to run, but should I really?"

I have almost 47 days until my next race. Forty seven days to be able to run 10 miles, to not be in pain, and to not die while doing it. I am now optimistic of this happening.

The photo above was taken on Saturday. Tom and I  went out to dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill with a few friends, then headed out for a very cold, night walk of the monuments. Even though I lost feeling in my right foot, we can happily say that we made it to each of the monuments on a blustery, DC winter night. 

Graston Technique - New and Painful

Let's start off with three random things: First, it is snowing in DC. I had my first 2 hour delay on Monday due to snow. On Wednesday it was in the 70s. Now it's back in the 30s and snowing. Hah! The weather down here is as crazy as in Vermont. Just slightly warmer.

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Second, the two perks to not running at this moment is that 1) I can take a shower early in the morning and actually be productive with my life and 2) I am consuming far less water than I was this summer and fall and don't have to be near a water bottle at all times.

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Finally, today was a great day of relaxation and food. I met up with some co-workers for lunch and tried out some delicious crepes at Cafe Bonaparte in Georgetown. For dinner Tom and I went out with his former co-worker and had salads at this awesome place called "Sweetgreen". It's the Subway or Chipotle of salads, but better. You get to create your own salads and have a ton of salads to choose from!

Note: I am not your stereotypical runner and rarely eat salads. When I do, I would so much rather have them made by someone else. So this place was perfect for me. I had their Kale Caesar and am in love with it!

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And onto the Graston Technique....

I didn't know what to expect when I walked into my first PT appointment Wednesday. Over the last few months I had considered making an appointment, and each time remembered all of the appointments I had in high school when I had shin splints and couldn't run: strength training exercises for my leg = boring.

Being new to DC meant that I had absolutely no idea where to go for an appointment. In Vermont I had an idea of where to go thanks to my days of working at the doctor's office and hospital.

I happened to luck out and find someone close by and someone who is an athlete himself. I like to have athletes as my providers because they know the pains that come with being in pain. In other words, they know how much we don't like to take time off of our sports.

The doctor that I'm seeing uses the Graston technique, something I had not heard of until our appointment on Wednesday. It is one of the weirdest things I have experienced. Basically, the doctor will use a metal tool to rub over the area of concern. While doing so, it is supposed to loosen scar tissue and bring in cells that help with injury repair. Apparently it has been quite popular with track and field athletes.

He worked on my leg for seriously 3 minutes. Maybe four. And it was painful. As soon as he stopped my leg felt better, but it was really HOT! The technique increases the blood flow to the area to help it heal, causing it to feel significantly warmer.

Last night, 48 hours after the appointment, my leg still felt rather raw. It felt just like it did after Philly and hurt to touch. This had not been the case prior to the appointment. It only bothered me when I ran.  Fortunately, it was feeling much better today but is still a little sore.

I go back again on Monday for another brief session of pain. After reading about it online some people say that the pain lessons with each appointment. Let's hope so! I also hope that it actually works. It's always a little nerve-wracking to try something new. Especially something that has to cause pain in order to work. But I guess that's how running goes, right? You have to break down some muscle to get better?

My foam rolling is going OK. Wilson likes to help out. I mean, who doesn't want a 14 pound cat to climb on their lap while they're foam-rolling their hamstring? Ha! Speaking of foam-rolling, I'm off to get in a few minutes of it before bed.

Hope you all are having a great weekend :)

P.S. I'd love to hear from you if you've happened to have experience with the Graston technique.

And so I bought a foam roller

I was the last runner to get a Garmin last week. I was also the last runner to buy a foam roller. But the foam roller is what the doctor ordered and so here I am.

Even though I have reduced my mileages SIGNIFICANTLY over the last two months (thanks to teaching and being sick for all of December), my hamstring injury from October was not getting any better. Last week I finally called a PT/Chiropractor to take care of it and tonight was our first appointment.

He's thinking that I have a build up of scar tissue in my hamstring from the injury, preventing the muscles from sliding by each other correctly and causing pain. It's not serious pain by any means, but I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to have to worry about it getting worse. We have started a treatment to rid of the scar tissue, and he's given me things to do at home each day.

For instance.... the foam roller will be my best friend for 10 minutes each day.

So will ice packs. Except I used my ice pack for lunch yesterday and forgot to put it in the freezer. Right now me and the box of frozen butter are becoming best friends. Ewww...maybe I'll go switch to peas like less crazy people do.

He also said no running. Dang.

At first he said that I could run as long as it doesn't get worse. Of course I wanted to clarify - "You mean, even if I have some pain I'm ok to run, just as long as that pain isn't any worse than it is now?" D'OH! Shouldn't have done that. The answer was no. Do not run if there is pain, especially if you feel in at the start of my run. Which I do.

I'm cleared to bike and do an elliptical as long as those don't cause any pain. Problem is I HATE going to gyms! AHHH!

I must be patient and must follow the treatment plan, but it is hard. I have two races for April, one (possibly) for May, and I have decided to the NYC Marathon in November. I just want to ruuuun!

Anyway. That is the story. I thought I would update all of you since I haven't been on here for a while to talk about running. It was somewhat happening, but by no means anything exciting to share.

Hope you are having a good Wednesday!