Monday, April 19, 2010

Plodding through PT- Day 6

Day 6 of PT on my knee today, and I'm not noticing a great deal of change in terms of overall discomfort. I am seeing some improvements in terms of flexibility, but I'm still having intermittent pain on the outside of my right knee. It's not getting any worse, but I was hoping it would have started getting better. The pain was not particularly severe to start with, so I guess the improvements will be hard to clearly recognize, but I'm trying to remain optimistic. I'm currently doing a twice-daily therapy routine at home, consisting of a series of repeated stretches, then some foam roller abuse of my right thigh, followed by direct ice-massage on the knee. I'm being as vigilant as possible to make sure I get as much benefit as possible, and hopefully return to running as soon as possible.

I think with today's Boston Marathon I'm in a heightened awareness of running, and my inability to do so, which is proving very frustrating at the moment. In an effort to isolate the variables and figure out what is/isn't working with the therapy, I've eliminated any cross-training (bike, elliptical, etc.) and held off on starting yoga until I see my therapist again on Wednesday. Much of my daily work routine is about root-cause analysis and causation/correlation analysis, so I'm trying to apply those same principles to my attempts at healing. I'm desperately itching to get back to running, but I've come back too soon in the past, and don't want to undo any progress I've made.

Trying to send some good mojo to all the runners in Boston today. Really feel badly for those runners who got stuck in Europe and couldn't make the race. Amazing how global events become linked in such varied and interesting ways.

4 comments:

  1. I'm sorry that you are feeling some frustration but it sounds like you are doing everything right. ::big big hugs::

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  2. Hey, hang in there. Injuries test for desire for running more than anything else runner do.

    And, if I stay injury free, I will be back at OBX in the fall. At least that is the plan now. :)

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  3. Appreciate the support from you both. Back to my therapist in the morning to get the professional viewpoint on how I'm progressing.

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  4. Thanks for stopping by my blog. Thanks for the interesting article about an alternative to Boston. I am a small marathon runner, I prefer them. Although Boston has been on my mind for several years now, and I am so happy that I made it, I do prefer the small marathons for sure.

    Hope your PT continues to help. I think it may be wise to hold off on the yoga a little, but asap, i would HIGHLY recommend yoga. I go to a class and I would highly recommend that also. If you find a good teacher, who corrects incorrect poses - this will be the best for you. Everyone had to learn @ some point in time. It is easy to be in the wrong alignment and not realize it without a teacher.

    I would recommend recovering from your injury and then finding a class if you can and go for 6 months to 1 year. Then if you want to do it on your own you will know what and how to do it correctly. Just my opinion, but hope it helps. I believe yoga helps to keep some of the running injuries down.

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