Quickly...

I skipped last week's update. Not a lot happened.

Except that I ran 6 miles. In February. In 60 degrees. Yeah, that was awesome.

And then got an adductor strain which I thought was an injury (sure felt like one) but ended up just being a twinge. From doing those squats at the gym... :/ Seems when you're returning to running, you're not supposed to destroy your legs on the inbetween-days that are meant to rest your legs... who knew?

So, easy on weights for the bottom half of me, until I have more firmly established a running base.

With the adductor scare out of the way, I feel relieved. But still scared. I am paranoid already, and a reminder of how quickly injuries can pop up and ruin everything did not make an already fearful comeback easier.

The IT band is mostly better, too. Every now and then during a run, it will whisper a little. Like on the last mile of today's 4 miler. But a whisper is better than a roar. I just need to listen carefully and proceed slowly. The proceeding slowly part is not in my nature, but necessity deems it.

Running a little. Biking. Weights. Tomorrow I might swim. A good week in food... a not so good week of sleeping. Insomnia sucks! But overall, good. Always looking to improve. Stronger than yesterday (or yester-month or yester-year) but not as strong as I will be tomorrow.< that, is what I work for.  Every.single.day.

Maybe 7 miles this weekend?

About the Running

The short version: I'm running again.

The long version: I'm running again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of visits to the PT over the last 3 weeks confirmed that my dedicated hours of strengthening have been effective and my IT band is loose, flexible and healthy. I think I mentioned that last week? Yeah. But that outer knee was still giving me fits on every run throughout the first weeks of January. Thankfully, my PT is one who leaves no stone unturned. We went back to the drawing board and he started all over with evaluating my strength, stability, stance, running form, flexibility. Dr. C. spends 1.5 to 2 hours with me during those evaluations! Turns out I am like, really strong right now. Stronger than I've ever been in glutes, hips and core. My form and stance has improved and my flexibility is great. In short, I should not be having this issue at all!

I should be running better, faster, and healthier than ever, says Dr. C. But, hmmm… I wasn't, now was I?

During a couple of my stance and stability tests, Dr. C. picked up on the fact that I slightly hyper-extend my right knee when I'm in a standing, straight-leg position. It's almost imperceptible, but I could see it when he pointed it out. I then told him that my ITB issues always got way worse after long bouts of standing or having my knee locked, and he was all excited. PTs are weird like that, when they land on What Might Be Causing It. Apparently, in this hyper-extended position, the IT band has a more arduous journey to climb up over the lateral epicondyle. Meaning that when it finally does snap over the bone, it will irritate the bone. Lately, that's been happening; irritation at the lateral epicondyle in the outer knee, but seemingly not stemming from the IT band itself.

Right away, Dr. C. took the strengthening stuff in some new directions, specifically, calf and hamstrings. On top of my current hips, core and TFL regimen. Geez, pretty soon I'll have to be strengthening my butt cheeks in order to run decently. Oh, wait. I'm already doing that. I was really surprised when I saw the one exercise I have to do for a short period a couple of times a week: Jump-rope! Supposedly this is an effective calf and hamstring strengthening exercise. Hey, whatever it takes. I'm also working on hammy specific leg stuff at the gym.

We've been hitting the ART and massage aggressively. Dr. C, knowing I can't afford the full-blown office visit price every week ($55-$75, and my insurance doesn't cover it), tailored a quick, 30 minute ART and massage session that I can drop in and do every week, for $25. For February, at least, and then in March I'll go to bi-weekly if the running keeps on improving.

I also started running in Hokas… now, I know they're not a magic cure, because I first ran in them several weeks ago and my IT band hurt as much as ever afterward. But they do provide cushion and they force you forward a bit more, on your midfoot/forefoot. Which is what I need. The downside is that my PT dislikes maximalist shoes, so I am not telling him about the Hokas. Sometimes a little marching to your own drum doesn't hurt. Though this marching hurts my dignity a little. The Hokas are so weird looking! And though they feel good while running, they feel awful to walk in. I put them on just before getting on the TM, and remove them immediately after the run. I am not walking through my gym in those things. 

So, after nearly a month off from running (or at least nothing over 2-3 miles), I headed to the gym. My leg was taped up in a fashion so as to keep my knee from collapsing back, and Dr. C. instructed me to gear my form toward short strides, knee slightly bent, and running on the forefoot.

I ran 3 miles. It didn't start twinging at 2 miles, like it sometimes does. It didn't even kick in by 2.5 miles, like it always does. I went 3 miles. Then 3.25. Because I was too scared to push farther, I stopped. No pain. Walking around afterward = no pain. Holy moly!

Okay, I know I've run distances of 3, 4, even once a 5 miler, since this whole ITBS debacle. But never completely without pain. Even on the best of days, when I would ice the IT band before running, take ibuprofen before, and do a boatload of stretching, I would always get those tell-tale twinges at about 2.5 miles and thereafter. They would get worse, and I'd usually shut it down by 3-3.5 miles. If I proceeded to 4 miles. I was in bad shape. And afterward… oh my. It would really hurt. Especially going down stairs or on any kind of descent. I was running, but I knew I wasn't better, since I had to baby the injury just to coax a couple of miles out. I knew it was still there.

This time, I didn't ice or take ibuprofen. I didn't feel pain, Not during, not after. Not going upstairs or downstairs…. “Not in a box, not with a fox, not in a house, not with a mou---” oh, right. Back on point.

Maybe it was just a fluke? Yeah, probably. I vacillated between hope and despair… I'd been here so many times only to have my hopes dashed on subsequent, longer runs. Still, I wasn't feeling a thing in that outer knee!

I skipped a day. 48 hours after the first run, I ran 4 miles on the TM. No pain.

Tonight, I ran 3.5 miles. No pain. In fact, I feel incredibly strong. My hips and glutes and all of that central, pivoting stuff feels more stable, more rigid, more.. I don't know... run-happy. The legs, of course, are a little rusty by way of joints and tendons, etc. but that doesn't bother me. Consistent running will take care of that. I just want to stay injury-free! 

I don't know if it's the calf stuff, the change in stride, the shoes or the ART and massage that my PT has been doing 3-4 times a month (I can drop in anytime for a half-hour ART/massage for $25)? Or maybe that epicondyle has just had enough time to heal that my now-flexible, healthy IT band slipping over it isn't a problem? Maybe some kind of core or hip weakness that I had has now corrected with the strength-training? Whatever it is, I take away two things: 1) Keep doing all of the above. 2) Pray that this is finally the end of the road for me.

Thank you, Jesus. And I say that literally, fervently, without a hint of profanity. I am most grateful. May it continue. May this BE THE YEAR.

I Need a Band-Aid.

There are days when the thought of what used to be is just a dull ache. I miss it, but I've adapted. Not because I want to, but because I need to. I have to adapt to survive, to not go crazy, to find a measure of peace and happiness in a life currently without running.

But there are things called triggers… stabbing little reminders that wake you up like cold water thrown in your face. It will be one of the five senses: touch, smell, hearing, sight, taste. The feel of your favorite tech shirt between your fingers. The sharp, clean smell of lake-shore air from your favorite running route. A song on your treadmill speedwork playlist. Driving past a random running stranger; they're wearing Asics, you notice. A sip of Gatorade. Those triggers sweep away weeks and months of dulled memories and forced acceptance. They rip the Band-Aid of resignation off the wound and you start bleeding again.

I was cleaning in that corner… and as I moved the printer back to its position, I brushed back against it. The clanking, clinking sound jarred in my head. 

Trigger.

 That, right there...  The sound I heard every time I hung up a medal. When I stood here in exultation, triumph, exhaustion, and saw the piece of plastic, metal, and fabric fall to its place among the rest. 'Another one… ' I would think with satisfaction. Maybe another PR. Sometimes, another win. Always, another race trained for, completed, conquered.

They are not worth much, those trinkets, at face value. Costing a couple of bucks apiece, maybe? However, their value to me is not in the thing itself, but the memory attached. The place where I was when I first touched it, those heavenly finish lines. What happened in the minutes and hours just before receiving it... the months, even, in the journey to get there. The ways I lost myself and found myself, all in the same span of time. The sweat, the agony, the exhaustion, the emotion, the heartbreak, the ecstasy. It's all there; the medal being the shell, but the memory containing the soul of it.

I reach out, touch them all, lingering. It's been a few months since I even looked at my medals, acknowledged them, because in times like these I avoid the reminders. But that sound! I can't escape it, I can't resist it, and here I am: exposed. Vulnerable. I feel both naked and safe with all my memories, like I'm in the presence of a lover. My heart pounds as I let myself go...let myself remember… let myself desire the race again.

I don't even realize when it begins, but suddenly I'm aware of the tears slipping down my cheeks.

There was this one… my first AG medal ever, at my second 5k.

Marshall! My love affair with the half marathon begins, and never ends.

Broke 2:00 in the half=marathon here, 3,000 miles from home, with the Pacific Ocean tide crashing in the distance.

Ran one of my best races, here, at the breakthrough half that turned me from runner to competitive racer.

Erie half… where I ran the last 3 miles at close to my then-5k pace.

Marshall, revisited. Nearly a 20 minute PR in a year's time, breaking 1:45, and placing in my AG at a half-marathon with 1,200 participants.

Rehoboth. First- and only- marathon. That elusive marathon. Oh, God, this hurts.

That 10k PR, on a windy, cold, St. Pat's Day.

The Pig… a crazy hilly half.

'I came, I saw, I conquered', for all of those. I took home the medals, and I hung them. And 2 years- or more- later, I stand here, stroking them like the face of a long-lost relative. Broken outside and bleeding inside, weeping over what I've lost and keep losing and will I ever find it again? Will this tide ever turn for good?

I don't even know if this was cathartic or not, if experiencing those moments of vulnerability and grief make it worse… or if they help heal by somehow lending my subconsciousness hope? I find no answers. I just know that for the rest of the day, I carry with me this throbbing mixture of hurt, loss and yearning, the tears simmering beneath the surface. Where's a Band-aid when you need one?

You can take the girl out of the running, but you can never take the runner out of the girl.