I think my day started around 12:45am today. Between then and my 5am alarm I think I woke up 5 times either from a sleepy husband who kept banging my face with his arm or my relentless knee pain.
I got up and did a Livestrong.com workout. It hurt a lot. I pushed through the burning and stabbing pain and got it done though. Achieving a little victory first thing seems important. Today though was one of those days I could have stayed lying down. The burning pain is constant today and nothing is helping. I'm pretty convinced my leg is swollen since sitting in a chair is actually painful so I'm sitting with just one butt cheek on my office chair. It's day 2 of this nonsense. I'm going to get wild here and guess this is another flare up.
So I called my GP. She's out until lunch today, she likely had a late night baby delivery so I can't be upset about that. So to reassure myself I called and booked an overdue follow up appointment with my orthopedic surgeon.
I can guess about two emotional triggers that are likely contributing to the pain on top of the rain storm outside. First is my cousin (who was more like an Aunt) who is dying from brain cancer in another town. I'm expecting a call about her passing any day now. The second is my trip to my in-laws. Between both my daughter and I catching a head cold last week and a minor snow storm we rescheduled for this weekend. The thought of sitting in my car for 5+ hours (one way) makes my leg hurt. Literally. The fact I can't request we stop every hour for a walk break because my husband is hell bent on getting there sucks (and of course I have to defend my pain all the time to him so its not like I want that conversation on why it hurts today versus another day-if I knew that maybe I could stop the pain!). On top of that I have to choose between sleeping on a 20+ year old stab you in the back with bed springs hide-a-bed or a sofa since I don't want my daughter to sleep on the floor for 3 nights. I'll also get to listen to everyone else's medical issues while we're there for hours on end and get told how fat my husband and I are by his grandparents. I won't mention that there's one bathroom for 5 adults and 3 kids to share. My husband is also ditching my daughter and I to go party with an old friend and his ex-con cousin the evening after we arrive (gee thanks). I try to remind myself its only 3 days but if my cousin passes while I'm there I'll be grieving.
I'm the type of griever that just wants to be alone to cry at will and just be sad. I certainly don't want to be around my in-laws if my cousin passes while we're there (they are less than sympathetic) but I know there's not a hope in hell my husband will agree to come home early. The whole mess just makes me want to stay home and hobble around in my pjs. God help me through this BS.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Overcoming Invisible Hurdles
I am really starting to feel like I've overcome a big invisible hurdle in my running. For a year the best pace I could manage was somewhere in the 10 minute per kilometer mark. Even on my best days I couldn't move that number lower. Now, without any super effort on my part I've managed to get it down into the 8 minutes per kilometer mark. WTH? I'll take it!
So yesterday I managed a great Livestrong.com workout and a great 5km run commute. I had a bit of knee pain while I was couch surfing but it passed quickly and only happened a couple of times. It was certainly better than this past weekend where I spent hours in pain, never managing to get comfortable. It's truly exhausting to be in so much pain. By the evening I just wanted to lie in bed. It's not easy to not have control of how your body feels. But I'm learning that I need to take one day at a time, that there won't be some magic bullet that if I train hard enough this will all just go away. It won't. But I am learning how to manage it better, day by day.
This morning I got in a Livestrong.com strength workout and with every squat I could hear the crunching coming from my knee. It isn't just one or two little pops, it literally sounds like I'm stepping on Rice Krispy cereal. It only hurts a bit so I try not to load that leg as much as possible while still trying to work on that leg's range of motion. So instead of doing the full one legged squat I'll only crouch down until I can feel my quad working. Why not just avoid that leg altogether? Well, I have learned if I do that then my calf and my hip start to hurt, so for the sake of the "kinetic chain" I need to try as much as I can to keep that leg strong. Then there are pushups. One legged push ups are out and big leg extensions when doing mountain climbers are out too, and every time I go from standing to a pushup my knee makes a loud crack, but it thankfully isn't painful. Modification is key and I'm finding I can still get in a serious sweat session even when I take it "easy" on that leg. Day by day my friends, day by day.
So yesterday I managed a great Livestrong.com workout and a great 5km run commute. I had a bit of knee pain while I was couch surfing but it passed quickly and only happened a couple of times. It was certainly better than this past weekend where I spent hours in pain, never managing to get comfortable. It's truly exhausting to be in so much pain. By the evening I just wanted to lie in bed. It's not easy to not have control of how your body feels. But I'm learning that I need to take one day at a time, that there won't be some magic bullet that if I train hard enough this will all just go away. It won't. But I am learning how to manage it better, day by day.
This morning I got in a Livestrong.com strength workout and with every squat I could hear the crunching coming from my knee. It isn't just one or two little pops, it literally sounds like I'm stepping on Rice Krispy cereal. It only hurts a bit so I try not to load that leg as much as possible while still trying to work on that leg's range of motion. So instead of doing the full one legged squat I'll only crouch down until I can feel my quad working. Why not just avoid that leg altogether? Well, I have learned if I do that then my calf and my hip start to hurt, so for the sake of the "kinetic chain" I need to try as much as I can to keep that leg strong. Then there are pushups. One legged push ups are out and big leg extensions when doing mountain climbers are out too, and every time I go from standing to a pushup my knee makes a loud crack, but it thankfully isn't painful. Modification is key and I'm finding I can still get in a serious sweat session even when I take it "easy" on that leg. Day by day my friends, day by day.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Coincidence or not?
This weekend my husband had to work, and there was my daughter's dance kickoff show, and there was a blizzard so...I didn't get any runs in this weekend. I did however get a ridiculous amount of shoveling in! I also did a Livestrong.com stronger workout so I wouldn't feel like such a blob. Now, I'm not sure if it was the shoveling (I did try to take it easy) or if it was the lack of running but I had to take the maximum amount of ibuprofen both Saturday and Sunday just to keep from hobbling around in pain. As usual the pain just increased as the days went on and by the evenings I was just trying to sit in a position that didn't make my knee feel like it was compressing in on itself. Frustrating. To top it off I had to spend my one day at home cleaning all day since my husband wants us all to spend next weekend at his parent's house 6 hours away, blah.
The only bright side to going to the in-law's house is the extra time I get to run. No one moves before lunchtime there so I can take my time getting up and going for a run while my daughter watches their tv and my husband sleeps (unless my sister in-law shows up with her kids, then its a three ring circus). Unfortunately after that it's all about visiting other relatives and spending a lot of time just sitting around hearing about their health issues or the latest family gossip.
So, after my experience this past weekend and numerous other occasions like it, I think my knee responds better to running days than non running days. On running days it's pretty rare that I need to take a pill to get through an evening of couch surfing so I guess that's something new to track. Today is a running day, but I also did a Livestrong.com workout (yay me!), so I'll use my Livestrong.com diet app and see if I can find a correlation. If it turns out to be true that running is somehow thwarting my pain I'll make sure I ramp up my frequency to 5 to 6 days a week asap (currently I'm doing a solid 3-4 runs a week). But given what I've been experiencing I'm finally looking up the race calendar for this year and thinking about what races I'll run! So far I want to do the Waskally Wrabbit 27.5km trail race (mid-June), the Brookville 25km trail race (August) and I'm toying with the idea of ramping up for a fall marathon at the Maritime Race weekend (September). We'll see how the next few weeks of training goes!
The only bright side to going to the in-law's house is the extra time I get to run. No one moves before lunchtime there so I can take my time getting up and going for a run while my daughter watches their tv and my husband sleeps (unless my sister in-law shows up with her kids, then its a three ring circus). Unfortunately after that it's all about visiting other relatives and spending a lot of time just sitting around hearing about their health issues or the latest family gossip.
So, after my experience this past weekend and numerous other occasions like it, I think my knee responds better to running days than non running days. On running days it's pretty rare that I need to take a pill to get through an evening of couch surfing so I guess that's something new to track. Today is a running day, but I also did a Livestrong.com workout (yay me!), so I'll use my Livestrong.com diet app and see if I can find a correlation. If it turns out to be true that running is somehow thwarting my pain I'll make sure I ramp up my frequency to 5 to 6 days a week asap (currently I'm doing a solid 3-4 runs a week). But given what I've been experiencing I'm finally looking up the race calendar for this year and thinking about what races I'll run! So far I want to do the Waskally Wrabbit 27.5km trail race (mid-June), the Brookville 25km trail race (August) and I'm toying with the idea of ramping up for a fall marathon at the Maritime Race weekend (September). We'll see how the next few weeks of training goes!
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Bits of Progress! I'll take it!
Despite the fluctuations in the weather, I have to say, this winter has been WAY better than last year. I enjoyed a spring-like run commute home yesterday and almost had to take off my jacket it was so warm! My bad leg felt stiff and would get tighter as I ran but it never got to the point where it stopped me from running altogether. My lower leg bones also never transformed into iron so that was also a blessing. The frequent stop lights helped I think. To top it all off I even managed a PB (post accident) managing about a 8 minute per km average pace. Yuppers I was stoked. SO stoked I resolved to eat a healthy dinner so I made brown rice (I never make this, it takes way too long in my book) with olive oil and fresh veggies.
This morning my leg feels pretty good. I'm getting the odd twinge of pain but its nothing too serious, although it does hurt like hell when it hits. I often think about the bionic leg brace when that happens and wonder if it would help mitigate this pain. Still, the idea of wearing a thigh to ankle leg brace isn't appealing so I'm sticking with my current routine and finding out how far I can go and how hard I can push myself before I try any more interventions. Today I managed a 15 minute pushup/squat/ab routine (thanks Livestrong) and a mile long walk from the bus terminal to work. Later I'm planning to do the run commute thing again but depending on how the leg feels I might not do the whole 5km and just stick to an easy 3. We'll see how it goes.
This morning my leg feels pretty good. I'm getting the odd twinge of pain but its nothing too serious, although it does hurt like hell when it hits. I often think about the bionic leg brace when that happens and wonder if it would help mitigate this pain. Still, the idea of wearing a thigh to ankle leg brace isn't appealing so I'm sticking with my current routine and finding out how far I can go and how hard I can push myself before I try any more interventions. Today I managed a 15 minute pushup/squat/ab routine (thanks Livestrong) and a mile long walk from the bus terminal to work. Later I'm planning to do the run commute thing again but depending on how the leg feels I might not do the whole 5km and just stick to an easy 3. We'll see how it goes.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Bringing it Indoors
Between the driving rain and tropical storm type winds I decided I needed another option to my beloved trail system for my runs this week. So I went home. Not my actual home but the indoor track where I went religiously for years, across from my former workplace. The indoor track is a padded surface .25km (ish) track that circles an ice rink. The beauty is that no matter what it's doing outside, whether it be a blistering 30C or a subfreezing -20 it's always ready for a run.
Yesterday was a busy day at the track. I seemed to miss a memo about wearing a turquoise top since 75% of the runners were wearing one (weird). I stuck to the outside of the track (designated for runners) but not hogging the lane so the faster runners could pass. And they all did. Ugh. I remember being in the mix of them. Running laps and passing the slower runners as they pushed on. Now I'm one of the slower runners, plodding but determined. I managed a solid 5km run and did outlast a few of the runners before I had to head to my daughter's dance practice to carpool. My leg twinged a bit in my calf muscles. First the outside (left) side felt tight but then that feeling moved to the inner part of my calf. I thought about taking more walk breaks, but then realized if a little calf tightness was as bad as it was going to get I could push through it.
My knee felt pretty good until I got home. After a couple of hours or so I started getting sudden shooting pains extending from my inner knee across my kneecap. I wasn't doing anything special, just sitting on the couch watching Netflix. That's the part about knee OA that drives me nuts. I can be doing nothing and I get this intense searing pain that makes carrying on a conversation very difficult since my whole mind just goes "OH MY GOD..OWWWW!" which, of course, makes me lose focus on whatever the hell I was talking about. I find it hard to tie this to my run since A. it happened almost 5 hours later, and B. I was doing NOTHING involving my leg and I wasn't the least bit stressed. So when I complain I get the standard advice to take more time off running. They just don't understand that taking time off makes no difference. I'm in pain if I run or if I don't. So I've stopped complaining. There's no point...at least out loud to my loved ones ;-)
So, this week's been a banner running week overall. I've managed a total of 15km between Monday and today (Thursday), which is really freakin' good for me lately. Today I'm hoping to bring the total to a lovely round 20km and if I can squeeze in another 10 before Sunday I will be really proud of myself and my bad knee.
Yesterday was a busy day at the track. I seemed to miss a memo about wearing a turquoise top since 75% of the runners were wearing one (weird). I stuck to the outside of the track (designated for runners) but not hogging the lane so the faster runners could pass. And they all did. Ugh. I remember being in the mix of them. Running laps and passing the slower runners as they pushed on. Now I'm one of the slower runners, plodding but determined. I managed a solid 5km run and did outlast a few of the runners before I had to head to my daughter's dance practice to carpool. My leg twinged a bit in my calf muscles. First the outside (left) side felt tight but then that feeling moved to the inner part of my calf. I thought about taking more walk breaks, but then realized if a little calf tightness was as bad as it was going to get I could push through it.
My knee felt pretty good until I got home. After a couple of hours or so I started getting sudden shooting pains extending from my inner knee across my kneecap. I wasn't doing anything special, just sitting on the couch watching Netflix. That's the part about knee OA that drives me nuts. I can be doing nothing and I get this intense searing pain that makes carrying on a conversation very difficult since my whole mind just goes "OH MY GOD..OWWWW!" which, of course, makes me lose focus on whatever the hell I was talking about. I find it hard to tie this to my run since A. it happened almost 5 hours later, and B. I was doing NOTHING involving my leg and I wasn't the least bit stressed. So when I complain I get the standard advice to take more time off running. They just don't understand that taking time off makes no difference. I'm in pain if I run or if I don't. So I've stopped complaining. There's no point...at least out loud to my loved ones ;-)
So, this week's been a banner running week overall. I've managed a total of 15km between Monday and today (Thursday), which is really freakin' good for me lately. Today I'm hoping to bring the total to a lovely round 20km and if I can squeeze in another 10 before Sunday I will be really proud of myself and my bad knee.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
There will be good days and not so good days
So I would love to say my first run in my 50k training plan went great, except it didn't. Thankfully I am well aware that bad run days happen. It started out good enough. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm for February. I decided on the pod runner 179bpm podcast music to keep my pace steady. I should have probably rethought that decision after the first kilometer turned into a slog. Maybe if I had cut the bpm down to 150 or 135 things might have gone more smoothly. As it was, I was 1 mile into my 45 minute run and my calves (both of them) felt like they were on fire. Ugh. I started thinking maybe I need new shoes, and maybe I do, but I probably should have simply slowed down a touch. I struggled through the next kilometer then started doing 1 for 1's. Run one block, power walk the next and so on. I did that until I got to the steep decline past the local high school. From there gravity helped propel me through the next five blocks.
All in all though my total time didn't suck as badly as I expected and my legs felt fine after an hour or so recovery on my couch. Today, even though it is pouring outside I have hill training. I used to hate uphill runs but now they are one of the few things that don't cause my knees to hurt. So we'll see if the rain stops or if I'll be taking my scheduled "hilly 45 run" indoors to a stair master or bike.
Today I also check in with my GP. The last time I saw her was two months ago and I was starting that horrid Gabapentin. I don't think I'll bother asking for any other kind of pain relief, if they all have similar side effects, I don't want them.
So, onward and upward...literally ;-)
All in all though my total time didn't suck as badly as I expected and my legs felt fine after an hour or so recovery on my couch. Today, even though it is pouring outside I have hill training. I used to hate uphill runs but now they are one of the few things that don't cause my knees to hurt. So we'll see if the rain stops or if I'll be taking my scheduled "hilly 45 run" indoors to a stair master or bike.
Today I also check in with my GP. The last time I saw her was two months ago and I was starting that horrid Gabapentin. I don't think I'll bother asking for any other kind of pain relief, if they all have similar side effects, I don't want them.
So, onward and upward...literally ;-)
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Trying to have a goal
I've been known to over-reach in my goals. But then again, come hell or high water, I usually accomplish them. So while it came as no surprise that my husband would totally hate my idea to run (at least) one lap of this year's Waskally Wrabbit, I was also hurt that I didn't get even a hint of support, never mind he said (in an off-handed way) earlier this weekend that my personally has imitated a crab since getting injured a year ago. And here I thought I was coming off as nicer recently, I honestly have been really trying to be nice all. the. time. But clearly he still thinks I'm cranky. :-(
I need a plan. I need something to strive for, a goal, something tangible since my efforts at home go unnoticed and unappreciated. I thought this idea would be somewhat supported since more than a few people have asked me what races I am planning to do this year. My now-standard answer of "None yet" gives surprised reactions, which tells me I'm not truly back to my old self. My goal is the Waskally Wrabbit.
My recent pleasant surprise that running trails didn't leave me a sobbing pain-ridden mess, has also given me the gumption to give'r at the trail race that started it all for me. I'm not hoping for a win, or even a top ten finish, but I do want to finish that race again.
So, while I heard my husband after his eye rolling, huffing and puffing, and exasperated "I just don't want you to undue the gains you've made," I'm still going to try for this. I'm still going to start training, albeit without any home support, and see how this goes. If I fall into my injury cycle again, where I'm needing three days to recover from a run, then yeah, okay, maybe I'll rethink that goal and maybe rethink how far I'm capable of going nowadays and about running a shorter trail race later in the summer. But to give up without even trying just isn't me.
This stupid knee OA isn't going anywhere. I've managed to learn how to deal with the cramps, with the night pains that wake me up nightly, the kneecap swelling, the pseudo-locking and the crunching noises. No KT tape technique, brace, pill or time off has really helped long term. I am coming to terms with the fact I will have to live with this. So, if I have to live with this, and this knee OA is coming along for the ride, then that means I'm getting back to ME, and that means getting back to the trails support or no support.
I need a plan. I need something to strive for, a goal, something tangible since my efforts at home go unnoticed and unappreciated. I thought this idea would be somewhat supported since more than a few people have asked me what races I am planning to do this year. My now-standard answer of "None yet" gives surprised reactions, which tells me I'm not truly back to my old self. My goal is the Waskally Wrabbit.
My recent pleasant surprise that running trails didn't leave me a sobbing pain-ridden mess, has also given me the gumption to give'r at the trail race that started it all for me. I'm not hoping for a win, or even a top ten finish, but I do want to finish that race again.
So, while I heard my husband after his eye rolling, huffing and puffing, and exasperated "I just don't want you to undue the gains you've made," I'm still going to try for this. I'm still going to start training, albeit without any home support, and see how this goes. If I fall into my injury cycle again, where I'm needing three days to recover from a run, then yeah, okay, maybe I'll rethink that goal and maybe rethink how far I'm capable of going nowadays and about running a shorter trail race later in the summer. But to give up without even trying just isn't me.
This stupid knee OA isn't going anywhere. I've managed to learn how to deal with the cramps, with the night pains that wake me up nightly, the kneecap swelling, the pseudo-locking and the crunching noises. No KT tape technique, brace, pill or time off has really helped long term. I am coming to terms with the fact I will have to live with this. So, if I have to live with this, and this knee OA is coming along for the ride, then that means I'm getting back to ME, and that means getting back to the trails support or no support.
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