Friday, September 21, 2007

Letters in the air

Physical therapy is an interesting thing.

Right now is the "easy" part to rebuild the basic strength - flexing and stretching to build up the muscles in the ankle and rebuild the spacial relations/memories of the nerve endings and where things should line up ... or something like that.

My set of exercises for the week include drawing the alphabet with my foot - upper or lower case, my call - a couple of times a day. I also have a red elastic thingie for resistance when I flex the ankle and stuff.

The good news, I can start going for walks of increasing lengths. For example, today I can go out for about a half mile or so and see what happens. If I'm not sore or swollen, then I can go longer tomorrow and so on.

But for now, I'll write my letters in the air with my foot three times a day while I anxiously wait for the word to run again.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Bad news, good news

The orthopedist gave me the word today. The bad news is I did manage to give myself a pretty good sprain and it will require at least 8 weeks of healing. The good news, I can start running again in mid-October in small, controlled spurts with low mileage.

OK, it may not be a lot to some, but for me it means I can run again starting around Columbus Day. I can't do the Tufts 10k this year, but I can go for a mile run along Comm Ave. By Thanksgiving I should be able to run a 5k and I should be able to do the 10k at the Hyannis Marathon this year.

If I weren't wearing the air cast right now, I'd be doing the happy pika dance.

I do have my first physical therapy session this afternoon and I should only need a couple of those and they should be teaching me a set of exercises I can do at home. As the old Joni Mitchell song goes: you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. But it will be back soon and I'm happy for it!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Feh!

Turns out I have a ligament injury that has now been referred to a physical therapist. Excuse me while I scream.

When the PT place calls back, I'll book my appointments and take it from there. In the meantime I'm starting to think that there is something cosmically linked to me running 6 miles in a stretch.

Just when I was comfortable doing that last year, bronchitis laid me low for over a month. I get to that point again - turned ankle during a 5 mile race. Recover from that, up to a decent mileage again, another turned ankle this time with ligament damage.

I have come to truly love running and I'm wondering what I did to mess with the cosmic order to have to keep fighting these obstacles.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Owie

When I rolled my ankle a couple of weeks ago it was painful but pretty much OK. A little RICE and a few days later it was solid enough to run 5 miles in the Iron Girl.

So why, oh why, haven't I been running? Because somehow I managed to injure a different part of the foot/ankle - the top from just above the big toe to the bottom of the shin. Because of the location and type of pain, I have to ask myself if I did real damage to a tendon somewhere along the way. What's even more weird is that the part I rolled actually feels fine - so I don't think this has anything to do with the roll.

Guess it's time to put a call into the orthopedist and see what he has to say. *sigh*

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

I Am Iron Girl

I ran the 2nd annual Boston Iron Girl race yesterday. Last year it was in early July and it was my first real 5k, this year it was on Labor Day and it was my 3rd 5 mile race this year.

While my time was not spectacular (1:06), it was a PR for me. After rolling my ankle Thursday, I've been doing the RICE thing (rest, ice, compression, elevation). By Sunday it was feeling fine and I made a trip to Margaritaville when Jimmy Buffett landed at Gillette Stadium, so I was running this race slightly injured, little sleep and a touch dehydrated (but not hungover).

I drove in with my sister and we planned getting there so we had minimum time standing around since it's starting to get chilly in the morning (it is New England in September after all). The crowd was smaller than last year - I suspect that between the holiday and the 5 mile distance, people had other things to do. To be honest, if this race weren't on the holiday, I probably would have done the Marshfield one again as a measure.

The nice thing about the course, it was flat and I needed flat. It was also a 2.5 mile loop that you ran twice - which doesn't thrill me. I planned on running intervals: 5 min run/3 min walk and easing back if the ankle bothered me. It was a good plan and I pretty much stuck with it. In fact, I hit the water stop during walk breaks, making it that much easier. There were a couple of points where I got some bad stitches and walked through a run interval, but the ankle felt good.

I finished in 1:06 - not great but a PR for me. I would have liked to have done an hour, but given everything I'm good with my time. Would I do this again? Definitely but hopefully not after Buffett's Labor Day weekend show... but that's a different tale for a different day.