Posts Tagged ‘running injury’

Just got back from the doctor.  They took x-rays but nothing showed up so I’ll be getting an MRI next week.  I won’t see the doctor again till next Friday but have been assured that as soon as the results come back, I can get answers.

He does suspect that it’s a stress fracture, the only thing that doesn’t fit is the pain abating during my runs, though my last couple runs were hurting even at the end, which is why I finally took the time off.  On the good note, if it is a sfx, I won’t need crutches (this, determined by my current discomfort level) and I’d be able to do light activity.

I’m actually ok at the moment, not freaking out by the prospect.  By the time I see the doc next week, it’ll be 17 days off, my longest period since taking up the sport but I’ve got no interest in running until this thing is fixed. I’m done pushing through.

Some random thoughts:

Ibuprofen
After seeing the ART lady, I stopped taking it since tendinosis (what she thought it was and what it could very well be) is past the inflammatory stage, so it wouldn’t help.  However, the day before and morning of the 5k, I took a few rounds, specifically to feel better for the race.  So when I said I felt better on race morning than I had in a couple weeks, that credit was probably due to the Vitamin I.  No regrets on that, btw.

After the race I stopped taking it and haven’t since.   Initially it was to be in touch with my pain signals but even after I got that crazy groin pain last Friday (that thing lasted 6 days!) I still didn’t take any because it supposedly interferes with bone healing and if I have a sfx, I want to get it done with as quickly as possible.  Glad I held off since the doctor also advised me not to take NSAIDS.

Cross-Training
If this is a sfx and I’m looking at real time off, I’m not sure what I’ll do in the interim.  I’m well-educated on all the options available so that’s not the question, it’s what I’ll want to do.  I’m not an exercise-a-holic by any stretch and I also don’t have a huge fear of fitness loss – this, helped by the fact that my rebuilding period would start at the beginning of winter which means several low-pressure months to regain fitness.

Life
This part will suck some.  No way around it.  Running is my main interest, period.  Last week, when I got to thinking this could be serious, I did have a couple black days and one evening of tears wondering “what will I do?”.

I’m sure it sounds overly dramatic, but running is what drives me, what thrills me, what piques my curiosity day after day.  This blog is all about running, my online life is centered on running, all I want to read or investigate or waste time with is running (well, and some pop culture crap…but mostly running).  I’m ok about it now, though, I’ll figure something out, I always do.

Also, I was feeling double blue last week since work had been slow for most of October (it was going to be my slowest month in a year) but in a happy turn, I got some last-minute voiceover jobs and November’s already got some bookings, so that’s one less worry.  yay

Anyway, I still don’t know what ails me.  Could very well be some tendon stuff that with another week off, leaves the building entirely.  If so, then the above is moot but it’s what’s been on my mind.  I’ll keep you posted as it unfolds. In the meantime, I’m sending out a ton of virtual hugs to all you guys and gals for being so great, you blog readers, Facebook and forum friends.  Thanks for caring.

Last Night:
Hours after writing the last post, I took a short walk to the Post Office and was dismayed to find myself hurting more after 3 days off, which is not the way this is supposed to work.  It could be my own fault for the self-PT I’ve been doing; on Thursday I tried to loosen up my adductors which have been a shadow through all this so maybe I just irritated them further…I hope.  Regardless, I knew I wouldn’t be running the next day or for the next few days.  It was time to call a doctor.

The doc was gone, it was late Friday afternoon so I wasn’t able to make an appointment, but the nurse was great, assured me they’d want to take x-rays (hopefully an MRI as well) and she suggested I stop all foam rolling, massage, ART-lady-supplied exercises and stretches for the entire weekend and to “be kind to yourself”.

Physically, I was extremely kind: for two days, I sat on the bed with the laptop, leaving the apartment for one short limpy walk to Whole Foods. Mentally, I wasn’t kind as much as realistic, reading about femoral stress fractures till there was nothing left to Google, comparing symptoms and learning what recuperating from one entails but not really reading those parts too carefully because I can’t stomach the thought.  I so hope I don’t have one.  But I think I do.

This Morning:
Just got a call from the doctor’s office.  My fear of having to go through hoops to be seen by the right person has been completely allayed.  I was able to make an appointment directly with a Sports Medicine doctor at Rothman Institute.  The only crimp in the matter is that I have to wait until next Tuesday this Friday but the receptionist said I could call daily to see if there’s a cancellation (got one!).  My hope is that it’s just a soft tissue injury and that I’ll feel “fixed” before then, but I won’t be testing it unless I feel absolutely nothing going up/down stairs and walking around.

All that angst about the races I missed, doing poorly on the ones to come and the pfffft of a fitness balloon seems so silly now.  I just want to run.

In the list of stupid things I’ve done, racing a 5k while still in injured mode ranks right up there.  Running too much in the days after?  Double, triple stupid.  So here’s what’s been going on.

The morning of the race, I felt better than I had in a couple weeks, confident that I was on the road to repair.  The evening after the race, however, the old tension returned to my leg bringing some knee tightness as well.

The next morning, Sunday, I was super excited for a running/brunch date with my long-time imaginary forum friend, Chris, who just moved to Pennsylvania.  It was a blast spending time with him but we ran 9 miles which, considering my bum leg, was too far.  Additionally, we found ourselves in the midst of a huge AIDS walk, so two of those miles was all about sidestepping people, jumping up on the grassy, bumpy edge of the path, etc.  I made Chris stop with me a few times to stretch but even so, couldn’t get my leg to release – it was a painful run from start to finish.

Then comes Monday and Tuesday.  I fully expected the leg to settle down back to Saturday morning’s level and with that, I carelessly contributed more to the Stupid pile by doing two days of doubles.  They were short doubles, 5-milers per run, but I’ve since realized that my idea of short is colored by my mileage history and that one 5-miler/day should have been my limit till I felt better.

The thing that’s keeping me in this state of disrepair is one stupid word: Urgency.  It’s the word that reminds me how time is zapping by and with it, any speed gains I built the last few months.  It’s the word that taunts me with the races I’ve had to bag already and the ones still on the list that, if I can do them, will be quite a bit slower than what I imagined when I signed up for them. It’s a word that makes my kick-ass summer of 90-mile weeks feel like a “Get Well” balloon deflating before my eyes…one big pffffft.

I finally let that word go, it hadn’t been doing me any favors.  I’ve been off since Wednesday, so this is rest day #3.  I’m hopeful that tomorrow I’ll be able to go for a run but I’m not going to push it.  Last night I had a bit of a tearful breakdown but I’m feeling better now and more Que Sera, Sera about it. I’m certainly not the first runner whose plans have been derailed by a body part and I’m not likely to be the last.

Needless to say, I’m not racing this weekend and I probably won’t do the 10k on November 6th either – I already wasted a good amount of money on canceled races and the cost of a Zipcar for the 10k will be about $40.  I’m thinking it’s best to concentrate on getting strong and racing again in a month when I’ve got the Philly Marathon 8k.

On the positive side, last month was my true goal race for the season and though I’d hoped I could get faster for Vegas, the Philly Half was the one that mattered.  I got my long awaited PR, so with that in mind my Fall was a success.  I truly believe that.  And I’m also confident that next Spring will bring faster times.  I know I have it in me now and that’s gold.

As far as getting more ART done, I’m foregoing it because my insurance doesn’t cover it and it seems too late to make up the lost time anyway.  Vegas is going to be a social gathering on a grand scale anyway, so it’ll be a wonderful holiday even with a “fun run” of a race.

Aside from that, I added a bunch of new cute headband designs to Girl In Motion Headbands so take a peek if you haven’t already, here’s a link to the new stuff.

OK, have a great weekend all, run well and if you’re racing, have a great one!

I spent most of the week wondering if I’d be able to race today.  My runs have been progressively better, though they all start with a painful beginning, like I’m running on a wooden leg (extreme compression upon impact).  Thankfully, the hobbled part has decreased with each run and continues to dim with each successive mile.  So I was able to get in a couple 10-milers this week and by mile 6 or 7, forget about my leg completely, even picking up the pace on one run to 7:45-7:30s for the last few.

Still, I wasn’t sure if I should race on Saturday since the painful start is an ongoing issue and I was a bit nervous that racing might retweak me.  To test it out, on Thursday’s run I included a few pickups.  The first one felt twingy and made me think I better not race, but I then tried a couple more at around Half pace and they were fine.  Yesterday, I did a 5-miler w/4 pickups and those were totally uneventful, so I decided that Yes, I would race!

Funny how my initial worry when I signed up for all these 5ks was “It’s been so long since I’ve done anything near 5k pace, my times are going to suck whale dicks”.  Now, after a month of injury crap, my worries were “I hope this won’t hurt too much” and “I hope I don’t fuck myself up”.

To remove as much pain as I could out of the equation, I warmed up longer than I ever have before a race: 4 miles.  Luckily, I also had less wooden-leg-syndrome today so I was super pleased about that.  As for the race itself…

I had a hard time, just could not get my pace down and ran crazily close to my Half pace just a month ago.  My time sucked, 21:28, but I won 1st AG.

Last year at this same race, when I was far less fit then I am now, I got a disappointing 21:05, so all I can do is chalk it up to a month’s worth of injury.  On the positive side, my leg didn’t hurt during the race and feels fine now, plus I got an extremely oxidized rust-buster out of the way and my first bit of hard running in weeks.  Hopefully, next weekend’s 4-mile race will be smoother and my leg will be done with these injury shenanigans completely.

I was feeling all mopey about it when it was over and almost bagged the awards ceremony but instead, chose to kill time by walking home for a jacket since I live only a couple blocks away.  As I passed the finish clock ticking at 33:xx with a good amount of people still coming in, I saw the faces on these racers and the effort they were putting out and, I don’t know if it’s hormones or what, my eyes welled up.  Hell, they’re welling up right now thinking about it.  I just wanted to hug them all and let them know I thought they were great.

When I got to my apartment building, the girl who lives downstairs was also going inside.  Until now, she’s seemed kind of bitchy to me, barely said a couple words but she’d also come from the race, so we had a chat about running and she totally opened up.  She asked me my time and when I replied, she made it like I was some fast thing – it was really sweet.  Then I get back to the race site and chatted with a couple women separately who also asked me how I did and they, too, made me feel like a fast thing.  After I got my award (a medal), a woman that I recognized from those 33:xx finishers walked up to me to shake my hand saying “I’m in your age group and wanted to see what the winner looked like. Congratulations!”.

So listen, how can I whine about 21:xx when, for the luck of whatever, it could have been me trying to get that 33:xx and going up to shake someone’s hand?  This humbles me beyond belief. There will be no moping today, just gratitude for enjoying something I never dreamed I’d ever want to do, much less be kinda good at.  And to find it this late in life?  I’m one lucky, extremely grateful lady.

But I still hope next weekend is better.

After cutting Sunday’s run a half mile in due to pain, the next day, I took a different stance.  I remembered the ART lady said it’d be unlikely that I’d hurt myself further so I decided to treat the situation like a rehab patient. I see those people in the park, one guy with a dead leg basically, and he does his daily rehab walks though it’s obviously painful, but he works through it to get better.

Now I’m not someone who’d say “run through pain!”, quite the opposite, but this particular thing, because I’d had it looked at and believed I had a clue, seemed like something I could manage.  My feeling was that as long as I took it reeeeaal slow, it wouldn’t be much different than walking anyway.

So Monday morning I went on a run, or rather…a hobble, at first.  Honestly, all I could do at the beginning were little mincing steps at over 10min/mi.  I stopped a couple times to stretch and by mile 3, things started loosening up substantially and eventually, I was able to jog like a normal person, albeit 9:xxs.  I went for 5 miles but when I was almost home, realized I was going to pass someone I’d end up having to stop and chat with and I wasn’t in the mood, so I detoured and ended up with 5.8mi.  The legs felt surprisingly good by the end and the feeling lasted the rest of the day and next morning.

Because of that, this morning I expected to feel much better at the start of my run, but ended up having another rickety slow start.  It seemed like my leg needed to be cracked somewhere but despite my preparations before the run (heating pad, light stretches, dynamic warmup) I couldn’t find release.  However, this time it worked itself out much faster and once it did, I became my old runnerly self.  What joy to glance at my Garmin and see 8:30, then 8:20, etc.  My last mile was a comfortable 8:07.  The run was 7.25mi total.

I did have a funny encounter at the start of the run with some dude who was not going to be Chicked, no way, no how.  It was in my 2nd mile,  jogging at around 9:30 pace and I pass this guy covered in sweat, who immediately passes back but stays just in front of me.  I’m speeding up a tad because I’m feeling better, so I pass him again and while I’m doing it, he speeds up so we’re running next to each other for a bit, till he finally inches in front again.  This happened a couple more times till I finally left him in the dust (at 9:15/mi pace for gods sake).  I was itching to say “I’m injured, what’s your excuse?” but held my tongue.

It also made me smile to think what a confusing sight I must be for the regulars in the park.  Going out with a mincing shuffle, a look of both consternation and concentration on my face, then on the return, happy and loose-limbed with a huge smile from ear-to-ear.

As for the injury and why it’s been such a bear, there was a helluva lot of stuff affected: my sartorius, gracilis, inner hammy (both along the length and the pes anserinus) then outer quad and IT band.  I believe this is why I’ve had those balance issues, everything surrounding my knee was whacked!  Also, I’m sure if I made another appointment with the ART lady, she’s unstick whatever is causing the rickety starts, but it’d be $75 and since work’s been slow the last few weeks, I’m fine to finish up on my own.

Unrelated but for the record, it was hugely relieving that 2 of my extremely sane friends and a new friend (blog commenter) all mentioned they’d had the same dizzying feeling with dappled light that I described in the last post, so I just wanted to announce that I’m not a hypochondriac loony tune.  Or at least, not when it comes to dappled light (which hasn’t been a problem since that one incident).

Lastly, I’m kinda sorta playing around with the possibility of doing that 5k this Saturday.  If I can get over the rickety start in the next couple days then I might.  I won’t be fast, that’s for sure, but looking at the results of the last couple races I missed…the 50 year-old first placers were 24:xx.  Hell, the winning 40 year-olds for both were 23:xx!  But Saturday’s race has a crappy prize (a medal) though they do supply a great breakfast.  The thing is, do I care about a win or do I care about my time?  Well, of course I only really care about my time, so it wouldn’t be satisfying at all in that regard.  But maybe I should do it just to do it (and since I paid for the damn thing), but maybe it’ll be too soon after the injury…  Eh, I’ll see.

Afternoon Edit: OK, I think I’m just getting overly imaginative with this thing and exhibiting hypochondriac traits.  Bottom line is I just went for a walk to the store and nothing freaky happened, my legs feel like a normal person’s legs, ditto the hip.  So I agree with my pals on FB (and ZAB below) that it’s simply a case of too much too soon.  I’m not used to being injured for real so I’ll reign it in a bit.

The day after my ART appt, I went 7.5 wonderful miles, feeling almost like my old self.  On the way back, when I got to that little downhill, I still had some trepidation so I did it a few times till I had it better (still a slowdown but at least was able to jog it).  Then yesterday, I did a double figuring 5s were easy and wouldn’t cause harm.  The 5 in the morning was fine but the 5 in the afternoon was not.

A couple hours before that run, I found an extremely tender spot on my lower back so I rolled it, which hurt like hell so obviously needed it. This spot looks to be where the sciatic nerve starts and part of my troubles seem to lie along the sciatic path so maybe it’s part of the problem, except I don’t have the classic shooting pains that often describe sciatica.

One thing I noticed on Friday and Saturday morning’s run was that the first couple toes on my left side were slightly numb, which apparently sciatica can cause.  And the bulk of my pain had been in my upper quad and when the ART lady manipulated the area around the IT band and outer quad, she didn’t find any of that crunchy scar tissue found on the inner quad and couldn’t match the hurt she gave on that side so perhaps that also points to nerve stuff.

Anyway, after rolling that spot on my lower back, I felt like a rag doll and super tired but I was determined to get out there so not long after, I went for a run.

I completed the 5 miles but like Tuesday’s weirdness, had that strange feeling of instability. At one point, I didn’t even dare check my Garmin because I felt unable to take focus off the pavement for fear of stumbling.  I also had a strange issue with the dappling of light that I have to think is me being psycho – it was dizzying to see the alternating dark and light spots on the ground so that when I was in one extended dark or light spot, I relaxed a bit.  Am I going crazy?  I’m not a hypochondriac but maybe my imagination’s getting away from me.

Today, my leg felt fine hanging out in the apartment – I mean, there are still very sore muscular spots when I roll or Stick, but moving around wasn’t anything notable – so I went for a run, albeit nervous of how it’d go.  It didn’t go well: my leg hurt and my hip felt strange, maybe just stiff, all this stuff is hard to describe.  So after ½ mile I stopped and walked home.

On the positive side, there was absolutely no discomfort when walking and that’s been an issue in varying degrees for the last 4 weeks, so that’s hopeful and heartening.  It’s just harder force on pavement that seems to be giving me trouble.

Maybe I ran too much too soon or over-rehabbed myself these last couple days (tons of stretching, rolling and Sticking, the leg exercises, finding this new spot on my back…).  I’ll try again tomorrow morning and if it’s as foreign an appendage as it felt today, I’ll either make another ART appt (I can’t argue with Friday’s great run after limping into the appt just the day before) or call a regular doctor.  It’s a shame how calling a regular doctor seems like an exercise in frustration and the last thing I want to do but that’s how much confidence I have in the system.

Stay tuned…