PHYSICAL THERAPY UPDATE

Unrelated picture... me stuck in traffic the other day. But
yeah, keep adding houses without more roads Beaverton.

Okay, first of all, holy shit, physical therapy is expensive. My insurance plan doesn't cover anything until I hit my deductible ($1250) and let's just say we were almost halfway there after two visits. All told, even when my "insurance" kicks in, this whole thing is going to cost like $2,000. So yeah, that blows. However, it is necessary. My problems had gotten to the point where it wasn't just affecting me when I ran, I was having issues from simple things like kicking a soccer ball or going on a hike.

So I'm continuing my exercises at home and then going into the office once a week for the PT to evaluate me and add/remove exercises. I can definitely feel my ass and hips getting stronger along with my core. I still have way too much flab on my stomach for it to be outwardly visible, but I can feel my abs getting much more "defined," I assume from all the planking. I cannot believe how hard it is. It looks so simple! However, planking for 50 seconds spikes my heart rate well into the 130s  (I'm guessing, I don't have a HR monitor).  A couple times I have also noticed an increased "firmness" in my ass as well. So those are all good signs that the exercises themselves are working.

How am I feeling? Better, I guess? The physical therapy exercises I'm doing at home are making my knees hurt though, pretty much almost like I am running. It hasn't flared to the limping point yet, but I am still dealing with the generally knees. Hopefully those symptoms will subside as the other parts of my body get stronger. I'm worried that something else is still wrong, but the PT is monitoring all that so hopefully things will get better with time.

I did do a "test" this weekend that I'm sure the PT wouldn't like (shhhh!). I had Brandon on Sunday so we went and played soccer. Now, I played soccer twice before PT and each time it kicked my ass. Since PT we went to the field twice but I basically rolled the ball back to him while he practiced shooting and walked to get errant balls. This last weekend I actually kicked the ball back and gently jogged to get a few balls. Overall it was pretty light soccer "playing" (spare smashing a couple penalties... still got it). Normally, after playing soccer, I'd be limping on Tuesday. I'm happy to report today I feel no different than I did on Saturday before playing soccer. My knees are still slightly sore from the PT exercises, but they feel the same as on Saturday. So progress? Maybe?

So that's the update. Just continuing on with the exercises. My hips, glutes, and core are definitely getting stronger... but my knees still feel like they did when I was running. Oh, and I still owe you guys a Rum Run recap. One of these days.

REPORT FROM THE PHYSICAL THERAPIST

Wow! Look at the size of his... hands. There is no problem
there, I assure you. No problem.

So, I went to the physical therapist last Friday. She was very nice and appreciated all the Beaver gear I had on since she graduated from Oregon State herself. Basically it was an hour long appointment to diagnose what was going on and then teach me some exercises that will hopefully rectify the problem.

First, I verbally discussed what was going on. What makes my case so hard is that the symptoms change a lot. It's not a simple case of "I have pain in X when I move Y" or something like that. Sometimes my knees get swollen. Sometimes it feels like my calves where beaten with a hammer. Sometimes my hamstrings seize up. Generally though it tends to manifest itself in the "kneeular" area and keeps getting worse, to the point now that one physical activity will leave me limping.

So after thoroughly confusing her with my symptoms, she preformed some tests on me, basically testing my flexibility and strength in a variety of ways. Generally I suck in all areas. One test really stood out though. She was doing various strength tests, having me push/pull against her to resist her trying to push/pull that part. When it came to my hips, I literally had nothing. It was embarrassing. After "trying" to stop her from pushing or pulling or whatever she was doing, she was like "Okay, let's do that again, but really try this time." In my brain I was trying to find the muscle to really try but literally nothing was there. Anyways that was an eye opener.

Once she was done with all of that stuff, she basically diagnosed me with weak hip and glute muscles. In addition to strengthening those, I'm also going to strengthen my core. She did watch me run and it was good to hear I was in the right shoes (support) due to my running style. So she was pleased with that. Basically, when I am running my hips are just kind of flailing about from side to side with each step instead of being strong and keeping my body more rigid. Think of it as a sea-saw going back and forth with each step instead of staying more level with each step (good article here). This sea-saw action is jerking my knees around with each step and likely causing my issues.

It makes sense. My "injury" is not really an injury, like a torn muscle or whatever. As suspected, it really comes down to a muscle imbalance. So hopefully what she diagnosed is correct. If I can bulk up my hips, ass, and core, I'll be able to run "in balance" again. I'm actually excited at the prospect. So much of the last year has been running around trying to avoid flaring this condition up and it's been frustrating. I'd like to get to the point where I can just really go outside and attack it again. I miss the feeling of a nice, hard six mile run without the prospect of limping around for the next week.

My life now.

Towards the end of the therapy session the therapist gave me some workouts to do at home to help fix some of my problems. So I've been doing those. Some squats, some side to side squatting while sliding with a resistance bad, and planking. Holy shit, planking. I am only doing 45 seconds at a time but shaking like an boozehound in the morning. I'm also stretching because, as we all know, I'm not very flexible. Once I build up some strength, we'll slowly introduce running again. Maybe a half mile three times in a week. If that goes off well, then increase it to one mile. And so on and so forth.

Eventually, I should hopefully be back to running without issue. It's going to be a multiple month process though. I'm thinking marathoning might be out this fall. That's okay. I definitely want to get back there, but I want to get back there healthy. So I need to get back up and running and then hopefully do some cross training and strength workouts to prevent this from happening again! I'm not sure when I'll attempt another small run, but probably not for a couple weeks I'm guessing.

UPDATE ON GIMPY OL' THOMAS

I also got a tetanus booster & big boy bandaid.

Just thought I would post an update since I had some news. This recent knee trouble prompted me to schedule a physical with the doctor for the first time since, oh, about 2008. Oops. I knew for physical therapy I'd probably need a referral for the insurance bastards, so I scheduled a routine physical with the goal of bringing up my leg pain and getting referred.

Let's just say I accomplished my goal and it feels amazing. Just kidding. The doctor did the standard physical on me, which was good. I'm no longer a spring chicken. I'm going to get some blood work done and hopefully that all comes back good, but in general, aside from my knees, I appear to be in good health. Imagine that. I also got a chance to experience someone grabbing my balls and coughing for the first time. So that was fun. For some reason none of my doctor's visits until now involved this? Should I be disappointed?

When I brought up my knee pain, the doctor poked around, asked some questions, and then basically agreed with me that there is likely some sort of muscular imbalance that is fucking things up. So he wrote me a prescription for PT and referred me to a local therapist. My first appointment is this Friday after work. So that's good news! I was able to get into the doctor within a few days and then get into the PT within a few days. So hopefully I can resolve this by the time summer is over? Maybe? My knees are pretty sore from playing soccer this weekend and I almost want to run tomorrow so they are super fucked up for the therapist on Friday.

Anyways, that's the update. Nothing too exciting except that I am hernia free. I'll post a recap of the Rum Run at some point... basically I did a 9:00/mile, had fun, but it was harder than it should have been and left me a bit gimpy (imagine that).

I AM BROKEN

:'(

Well, unfortunately I've come to the point where I have to admit I'm broken and I apparently can't fix it myself. After my decent week back in early May I played soccer with Brandon outside on the field. A good hour and half worth of slinging the ball around. It was fun, I didn't feel anything too bad while playing, although I'll admit my knees ached with some vigorous twisting to kick the ball hard. The rest of the day I felt more or less fine. Legs a little worn, but nothing major.

Something that has been weird about my recent struggles is how when I fuck something up it doesn't affect me right away. Often it will take two or three days before it is at its worst. Almost like the delayed muscle soreness after a marathon. Anyways, two days later I was pretty much limping. It was really frustrating. I wasn't even really running, I was just kicking a soccer ball. The feelings were pretty much the same though. I took the whole week off and went nine days without a run.

When I got back to it I noticed I was even more out of shape. It's pretty frustrating to have 9:15/mile feel hard and leave you panting. By my second run back my legs revolted again. It was at this point I called it. Something needs to be done! My hamstring theory didn't really work. My hamstring is much better, still a little tight, but that didn't work at all. So something else is going on.

Anyways, there is probably some sort of muscular-skeletal imbalance. Weak hips or overpowering quads or who the fuck knows. Something is jacked up and it's primarily affecting my knees. The my knees themselves feel fine, they don't hurt when I run or anything. So I don't think it is anything with the knees themselves. But whatever is out of whack is putting a lot of strain on the muscles and ligaments around my knees so afterward they swell up and complain.

It kind of makes sense, because the imbalance wouldn't really get better by taking time off. Maybe if I lay in bed until I withered to nothing and restarted from scratch it would. However, appealing as that may be, it is not an option! So it's off to the doctor to get referred to a specialist and then hopefully get some sort of physical therapy or exercises to help fix what is wrong. I just want to know what is wrong. Hopefully it won't be too hard for them to figure out.

That's it in a nutshell. I need to schedule the appointment but I'm afraid of how much this is going to cost. I've had a lot of expenses recently, and although I have plenty of savings, I don't really feel like blowing a ton of money. Hopefully must of it can fall under normal visits to the doctor/specialist, which are just co-pays of something like $30/ea. Whatever it is though, I'll bit the bullet and do it I guess. Running is key to me staying in shape and a big part of my social life, so I'll miss it even if I won't miss it... if you catch my drift.

Guess what? I have a race tomorrow! Yay! Probably my last one for a long time. It's the Rum Run, year FIVE. Holy shit! You know what's great? I'm totally going to fun run it. I'm not going to give a single shit. Just enjoy myself and hobble along at whatever is easy. Should be fun. Actually kind of looking forward to it... no pressure!

Anyways, posts to this blog will probably become much less frequent. Not that anybody reads it. I'll keep you abreast on the whole diagnosis/rehab thing though. Just about every running blog ever has that stage, so onward I go!

BEST WEEK SINCE FEBRUARY

At about mile seven out of ten. About when the legs started asking for me to be done.

Last week would definitely be categorized as a success. I had a solid, easy six miler on Monday with PRC followed by a spastic pace three miler on Wednesday (I had to tone a tempo-ish run down due to previously mentioned stomach issues). That left Saturday, where I joined the Portland Marathon Clinic for the first time this season. They were running ten miles from Club Sport, which is only about a 15 minute drive. Sounded good since Sunstone was planning on running a grueling hill route through Cooper Mountain Nature Park. That run, while beautiful, would not have been what my legs needed!

Anyways, I was glad that Katie decided to go to PMC as well. With some slight prodding I convinced her to join the 3:30 group since they typically run long runs at 9:40ish a mile. Turns out they ran 9:25ish for this run, I guess they run a bit faster earlier in the season. I usually don't join until at least June when they are running upwards of 14 miles, so it was a bit strange to be there that early. The turnout for the run was HUGE though, very surprising. Vincent was also there and also ran with the 3:30s so it was fun to have some buddies to run with.

The long run actually went pretty well. It felt really hot out, I think it was only about 70 degrees or so, but it was muggy or something. Reminded me very much for training for the marathon during those hot summer months. The run got off to a bit of a rough start, the warm weather coupled with me being out of shape meant it was harder than it should have been. Luckily, around mile four, my body found it's groove and it started to feel more like a typical long run. This lasted until about mile seven before my legs started to complain. It was fun while it lasted, my breathing was easy, my legs felt great, and I could talk without issue.

Turns out the course called for an eight mile lollipop loop back to Club Sport, followed by a two mile out and back for those who wanted to do ten total miles. I could have totally been done after eight, but I made myself due ten miles. Those two miles were harder than they should have been and I found myself being the "caboose" of the group again. Just like old times. They totally sped up though, and I was not about to speed up to match them. I kept chugging at 9:20/mile and eventually, with the help of a stoplight, caught up and finished right with the group.

My legs felt worn but responded in a good way. Like they used to after a long run. That ten miler was way harder than it should have been, but I'm glad I did it. All together for the week I ran 19.6 miles (totally rounding that up to 20), which is the most since February. My legs feel good and that is encouraging. However, I've been able to basically do a week like this before and then after two or three weeks consecutively of running semi-regularly they blow up again. I'd like to think my legs feel different this time, I swear they do, but only time will tell. Not celebrating yet.

RUNNING... FOR THE BATHROOM

Well, after Mexico I've been running again. My legs feel alright - nothing crippling, but they don't feel like they've magically fixed whatever is going on. I'm going to attempt a long run this weekend, probably 10 miles, and we'll see how that goes. Overall they do feel better than they did a few months ago, so I'm hoping for continued improvement. If they still get fucked up even after all the time off and efforts to stretch and whatnot, I'm going to have to see a sports doctor. And that's annoying and expensive.

Mexico has left quite the impression... on my digestive tract. I ate something that wasn't washed properly, and... there's no easy way to put it...I've been shitting my brains out for 11 days now. I even went to the doctor to make sure it wasn't something more serious. He seems to think it's just a case of Traveler's Diarrhea that's taking a while to clear up. I hope so. I actually had a good day on Tuesday, I thought I was cured. And then yesterday/last night was probably my worst day. So that has been interesting. The threat of that happening has certainly made my runs more interesting.

Aside from that, nothing much has been happening. I do have a race on Saturday the 21st... another year of the Rum Run. It was a total cluster last year, you can read that here, so this year they have changed locations and it's actually right by my house. Super handy, but I will miss the Tualatin location. It was somewhat of a tradition and I liked finishing around the lake. The new course has a pretty big hill right in the middle too. Should be interesting. Based on my runs since Mexico, I'm even in worse shape than the Blooms to Brews 10k, so if I'm able to run the Rum Run under 8:00/mile it might be a small miracle.