Catching Up

At one point, I was going to post updates to the physical therapy as I was going through it. Unfortunately, something got in the way. It was boring. It worked great, and the PT was able to teach me quite a bit about knee stability and exercises to help keep the knee stable, but at the same time, the real highlight was bringing in a UVA pennant for them to put up on the walls (which were already chock full o' SEC flags -- but Virginia needed to represent).

In any case, I finished my physical therapy. And it was good. And I went back to the sports doc, who told me that I still have fluid in my knee and likely what was happening was that my kneecap was floating around and banging into things when I was doing some crazy exercises... like running. The solution at this point was to give me a brace to keep the kneecap in place while working out. As an added bonus, the brace has some stability stays on the side, too!

So, here I am. It's one week until the Gate River Run, which is apparently the largest 15k in the country ("USA 15K Championship", according to the website: http://www.gate-riverrun.com). In any case, there's an untimed 5k for charity, and a vicious 15k that everyone says is absolutely fantastic to do. And I really want to do the 15k. I signed up for it long ago, thinking I'd be healed by now, mostly for the reason that the race finishes inside Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars (and to make some of my friends happy, I have to mention that it is also the home of the annual Georgia-Florida game). It ends in the stadium! How awesome is that? They'll put us up on the Jumbotron (which is much larger than the one in Lights, Motors, Action! at the Disney races).

But I've been sitting on my bum for five months.

What to do?

Well, if you're anything like me, you're going to take your new brace and go for a walk. You'll start out with a notion of going five miles and seeing what it feels like at that point, and if you can keep a reasonable pace going up to then.

And if you're still anything like me at that point, you'll be feeling pretty damn good at five miles, and you'll come up with a plan to go up to the local grocery store and get some G2 and walk back home.

And if you're still anything like me, you'll get up to the grocery store and realize that you've gone 5.8 miles at this point, and you'll be incredibly curious to see how quickly you can finish the 10k. So you'll skip the G2 and keep on going.

Finally, you'll get to the 10k point (in 1:28 -- walking), and realize that you're just short of 5k from the house.

So, here you are. It's your first excursion out of the house in a looooong time. You're testing yourself to see if you think you'll be able to walk a 15k next week, and keep a decent time (hoping for less than a 15 min/mile pace). And to do this, you *do a 15k*.

And you do it in 2:12.

And then you can't really walk much on Sunday. Or Monday, for that matter.

But just wait until Saturday!!!

One week in

Today was my third real physical therapy session, and I think they're going pretty well. We've been warming up with some time on the bike (8 minutes Monday, 10 minutes Tuesday and today), and usually go on to stretches and some basic quad-strengthening exercises. Today, I got a special treat. After those exercises, I got to go on the elliptical machine for 10 minutes to see how things are going!

The verdict: pretty well. I didn't have much pain while I was on the machine (for 10 minutes), and any pain I did have went away pretty quickly afterwards. However, a little while later, my knee is definitely a little sore. At this point, I'm not really sure if it's due to the meniscus or the workout, but I'm going to make sure to mention it to the PT on Monday when I go back.

But I got to do something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike running. Hooray!

Ready for Recovery

It's been a while since posting. I'm not going to go into the full reasons why now (if ever), but there was a lot going on with me in the last couple months. So, the quick version is this:

1. Torn right lateral meniscus. That's why I had to stop running.
2. MRIs suck. Luckily, you can get them scheduled pretty quickly when you need them.
3. Unfortunately, the sports doctor is not the same way. He's really good... it just took literally *weeks* before I could get in to see him after getting the MRI done.
4. yadda yadda yadda
5. I actually did walk two 5k's in that time frame -- the Race for the Cure and the Disney Family 5K at the marathon weekend. Unfortunately, no luck doing the half... :(
   
6. I started my physical therapy today!

Yes, it's true -- I'm staring physical therapy in the hopes that I won't have to have surgery on my knee. The injury itself doesn't seem to be that bad. It really doesn't bother me on a daily basis, maybe occasionally flaring up when I'm going up stairs. So we're trying to work on my quadriceps and see if I can get things balanced out properly. Today was my first session, so they gave me some excercises to do at home, and I'll get into it in earnest next Monday.

Woo hoo!!!

Now, this weekend, off to Tampa and the Gasparilla Pirate Festival!!!!

(Yes, I said pirate festival. Quiver with your jealousy.)

Back on the DL

I know... I still haven't posted the race report for the Race for the Taste. But I've been busy. And, it's just really hard to mention. You see, my knee started hurting in the later stages of the run. It felt good after about a week, so I went on another run, and it flared up again after about three miles. I went to a sports medicine doc, and now I have to get an MRI on it to see what's going on.

Luckily, I've already paid my max out-of-pocket for the year with my insurance. Bring on the free medical!

Anyway, he also said that I'm not allowed to run anymore until things get checked out. So, I still did the Race for the Cure this week... but I walked it:

Chip time: 40:11
Avg Pace: 12:57

Damn, not too bad. But I still hope I don't have to try to walk a marathon...

Pre-Race Report: Disney's Race for the Taste

Or, "Better Late Than Never".

To truly tell the tale of this race, I need to start a copule days before. Lana and I had gotten into Orlando a couple hours after we had wanted to on Friday, so we just ended up meeting the 'rents at Big River (at the Boardwalk area) for dinner -- I had a nice chicken penne dish -- and some beer. As you might guess from the title of my last post, beer is involved in most of my best stories, but I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Anyway, since we were late, it was pretty much dinner and head to the hotel for bedtime. After all, the next day was a big day.

However, it wasn't big because it was race day. No, quite the contrary. It was the day before, where if I were an intelligent man, I would be taking things relatively easy. But we were at Disney, so that was right out the window. Well, I could at least control myself a bit, right? Well... see above re: Disney. We decided to go old school and head to the Magic Kingdom to let the kid inside me out to play. And he had some fun. We walked all over that park... repeatedly. I won't bore you with the details, but I think I should have been wearing my Garmin that day, just to see what we really did. Maybe next time...

At about 5:30, we decided to leave the Magic Kingdom and head over to Epcot, where we had dinner reservations. I think that by now, my loyal readers have learned enough about me to know that I don't do things in a conventional way. So, what would be the best food for training for a distance run? Of course -- the German buffet!

Several sausages, lots of salads, German cheesecake, more spaetzle than you can imagine, and a liter (yes, a liter) of Oktoberfest beer later, we were ready to move on, so we got out of the restaurant -- just in time to see the fireworks. We waited on them while Mom tried out her "fireworks" setting on her camera (which apparently doesn't work that well), and then staggered to the car and went back home. We finally got to bed at about 10:30.

...and woke up at 4:45. It was race day, and I was actually excited! Granted, I wasn't working on much sleep, but this was the great day that I had marked on my calendar months ago.

My first 10K.

And it didn't disappoint.

But now it's late, and I'll have to continue later... when I have the pictures.

When You Wish Upon A Beer

I'm about to be getting out of Dodge and heading down to Orlando for the Disney Race for the Taste 10K. This will be my first 10K race, so I'm pretty anxious about it, but at least at the end, there should be some tasty vittles and good beer (Epcot won't actually be open at that point, so I'm making my parents supply the beer).

Expect a race report on Monday night when I get back.

Wish me luck!

Rain, Rain Go Away

It has been raining here for days. Not off and on for days, but for days straight. The sun didn't peek out yesterday at all. It has been gloomy and nasty. It honestly seems like it has been nighttime since Sunday.

I don't know how people in those arctic regions survive.

In any case, after another long day of work yesterday, I was really feeling the itch to do something, and my wife was stuck at work for a while, so I decided I'd finally take this opportunity to get a run in. During the week. I know, I know... it's not what you'd expect, but I did say in the last post that I was going to do this.

Of course, I've been saying that in lots of posts.

But this time, I meant it!

So, I got to the gym, fought the torrential downpours from this storm that doesn't actually have a name, but seems at times like it should. I straggled through the door, looking like a cat that got left out a little too long. I managed to drag myself over to one of the treadmills, set it to a warm-up, and started walking, at a 2% grade. I started running on it a few minutes later -- not quick, but a decent pace.

And you know what? It felt pretty good.

I ended up running for half an hour, with a few walk breaks in there. I did lower the angle from time to time, as my shins were starting to get pretty sore. It's obvious that I need to work on the strength in my shins at this point. But I still got through it with an average grade of 1.1% (according to the treadmill), having run 2.3 miles. Not too bad, considering how easily I was taking it.

As for the orthotics, well, they felt kinda weird. Not a bad weird, just weird. I know they'll get better as I continue to run with them, but I'm still going to ease into that pretty gently. For instance, I will not be wearing them this weekend at RFTT. But I'll probably wear them for running tomorrow (we'll see if I can't make 2.5 miles at 1.5%, or something like that).

Yesterday was a fantastic example of how running can beat the blues. Even after a treadmill run, I felt spectacularly good -- good enough to get through the rain and get back home for some good ol' country fried steak and taters! I haven't completely embraced the "eating well" portion of my training, but dangit, it was goooooooood!

And now it's raining again. And me without my shoes.

*sigh*