Rehab Of Heel And Ribs Almost Complete

Many of you know already that I have had some forced time off from running. For those of you who are not aware of how I got to this point see: ( Struggling With Downtime )

Today I cycled for the first time in 7 weeks. I have not run yet and will not try until I am given the go ahead by my physical therapist (PT), next Thursday. He said he would give me a protocol at that time which would probably involve only walking and cycling to begin with. In fact, I was not given the go ahead to cycle as of yet but I just could not resist the opportunity to try and see how the heel would respond. So far the heel seems fine and cycling, while bothersome, never did inflame it as much as running. I usually only noticed a problem hours to a day afterward. It has been 4 hours and so far no noticeable problem. The ribs are pretty much completely healed, as I do not notice any soreness unless I do some sort of extreme movement or pressure in the wrong place. Cycling was no problem for the ribs ( See: Trail Run,Fall, Broken Ribs, Oh My) at all, and I am sure running would not be either.

I have 6 more days until the walking boot comes off. I know I will want to try and run immediately but my PT says he will put me on a walking protocol first and graduate to running. This will be tough, but no one wants this to work more than I, so I will follow the protocol. He said cycling would probably be OK also.

Hopefully the epidural shot I received last Monday in my sacroiliac joint will be a more complete and long-term solution to my heel and leg problems. Within 3 days of the shot I noticed a significant relief in my left hip and leg, allowing me to increase my flexibility by almost six inches in several stretches including touching my toes from a standing stiff leg bend and even down to the second finger joints being bent. Another stretch that I had been doing was from a seated position bringing my left foot up and crossing it over my right knee while bending forward at the waist. This stretch would often elicit a slight shock like sensation from my hamstrings to my heel. Not only has this disappeared, but I can now lean forward touching my head to my left leg at the knee, whereas before my head was about 6 inches away. In two days I see the pain doctor and he will hopefully prescribe at least one or more future injections to completely calm the hip and leg soreness from the nerve problem. The relief I have gotten is significant enough to verify that the main problem is a nerve inflammation

My plan for the future is to start training for another marathon as soon as possible whether or not my heel is completely better. The reason for this is that the next course of action, if it is not better, would be surgery and I do not want to be out any longer than I have to being off my feet. I would rather go into surgery from a state of maximum conditioning than to go in already having lost 10 weeks or more.

So, I have my sights set on training for the Tucson Marathon in December. I may also do a trail Ragnar in the meantime. Pray for my heel to be completely healed within the next two weeks!

Looking forward to training again very soon!

ON a lighter note, I am hoping to score an interview with The Jester, AKA Ed Ettinghausen. He is a rather prolific ultra marathoner who has just completed his 3^rd Badwater 135 mile ultra marathon, from Death Valley to the Mt. Whitney portals. This race is considered by most to be the hardest foot race in the world with temperatures reaching near 130 degrees and upwards of 150 degrees and more at road level. Make sure to check back soon!

Happy Trails,

Russ

Don't take Life for Granted

At the age of 62 my father was still playing slow pitch softball. That same year he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I loved that my dad was still active at the age of 62. Over the next 14 years the disease gradually took its toll on my dad’s body. He slowly went from being active and mobile to having to have help dressing and walking. The muscle rigidity made his Trapezius muscles in his neck feel almost like iron. He had a hard time sleeping for very long at a time. The disease finally took his life through pneumonia at the age of 76.

In watching my father fight this disease, as gracefully as anyone can, I remember thinking how hard it must have been for him to hang on. He would try so hard to be able to just walk on his own. Seeing this made me resolve to try and never take my health for granted and yet I did just that. I let myself go over a period of four years, three of those years being the last three of my father’s life, going from 176 pounds to 212 pounds. I did not have the energy to walk even a mile with my wife. I did not feel like playing ball with my son or even playing golf riding in a cart. I had gone back to school and two years after starting school my father died. I finished school with my BS degree in Electronics Engineering. That is when I knew I had to make a big change so I decided to train for a marathon.

I ran my first marathon in March of 2000. When I crossed the finish line I could not imagine running another one, but a few days later I decided that I could do better and why let all this training go to waste on just one marathon. I ran that first marathon at a pace of 12:12 per mile for a time of 5:19:49. Just two and half years later in October of 2002 I qualified for Boston with a time of 3:33:40 at an 8:09 pace. I ran Boston the following April. I was hooked on running. I knew that I needed running to keep me healthy and sane! Even if I came down with some debilitating disease like my father I would at least go down fighting and take every advantage of my health as long as I possibly could.

Now I am 60 years old, just two years younger than my dad was when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Other than a few aches and pains that tend to slow me down a bit, I seem to be in perfect health. At the present time I am recovering from three broken ribs sustained on a trail run three weeks ago. I am also rehabbing a chronically sore left heel and have five more weeks of physical therapy to go through. Hopefully this will work so that I won’t have to have surgery. Either way I will do my best to stay as active as I possibly can. As long as I am able I will continue to run and if I can’t run then I will cycle or swim.

My mother was taken from me about a year after my father passed. She died at the young age of 64 from a stroke, heart attack combination. She was obese and had diabetes, which tends to run in her side of the family. I remember being upset when she died because she did not take care of herself. I had been running for about four months when she passed. I was hoping that she would be able to hear about me finishing my marathon. Hoping that it would spur her on to try and work on getting healthy again.

I have a brother who has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He has, for the most part, taken his health pretty serious. It is possible that his occupation as a stone mason had something to do with developing his disease but it could also have to do with living about four miles from one of our nations worst nuclear disasters, when he was a young teen, at Rocky Flats Plant on Mother’s Day 1969. I happened to be away at boarding school 30 miles to the north of where we lived in Golden, CO at the time. My sister also suffers from respiratory problems and another brother had asthma when he was young.

The point of all of this is, that because of my family's health problems I am very conscious of how precious my life and health are. I don’t want to take anything for granted. Anytime something could happen to take that away from me, but as long as I can do something about it like run, cycle, hike and swim I will continue to be as active as I possibly can. Running is my first love, but I enjoy being active in any way I can.

One of the best things we can do for our health is to do 40 minutes or more of some aerobic activity at least 3 times as week. This will help keep our hearts, minds and bodies as healthy as possible. I love to go beyond that for my own enjoyment, but for health reasons all that is necessary is the small amount mentioned above.

Don’t take your life for granted. My brother and sister would love to be able to run or cycle if they could. I run for them and for myself because I can.

Happy Trails,

Russ

Some Thoughts on Dealing with Injury and Alternate Training.

Some Thoughts on Dealing with Injury and Alternate Training

So two weeks ago I had one of my best races in a long time and came up limping 20 minutes after the race. I didn’t mention it in the last article because I was hoping it would just go away and be nothing. I have really been putting in some good concentrated efforts lately and peaked at the right time but then disaster. Although it appears I might have a stress fracture in the lower third of my left Tibia, it has not been confirmed. My doctor said that he thought x-rays looked negative but they often do right after this kind of injury. After speaking with the radiologist a week later he says the radiologist thinks he sees a possible injury site, so now a bone scan is next (Monday, May 13). Either way I am not supposed to run for 4-6 weeks at least. What do I do?

The first week I simply tried staying off of the leg as much as possible. At this writing it has now been 14 days since the injury, and most if not all of the pain is gone. I can walk without pain although I have yet to try walking fast or far.

Tuesday I swam 500 yards in a local pool, which is a pretty good workout for me since I am a terrible swimmer. Wednesday I cycled for 30 miles and about 2hours time at a relatively easy pace and Friday I cycled for 40 miles. Both were OK’d by my doctor once the pain was gone. So far no pain from either of the bike rides.

I guess you could say that I am lucky because my injury still lets me stay somewhat active and I can do sports that would normally be called cross training. I do feel lucky in that regard but I also feel a little bit cheated because I had big plans. I had a marathon planned 6 weeks after the half marathon and everything was pointing to a pretty easy Boston qualifying time. I was not even thinking about the possibility of just squeaking in under the time, I was thinking about pretty much being 10 to 15 minutes under that time for sure.

So yeah, I am a bit depressed and frustrated right now. I know it will pass but I need to vent a little. So you get to be the recipients of my venting. I don’t know if this will help me deal with the time off from running but right now I feel a little bit better just writing this down. @&%$ %^*&!$!, OK I said it, you can put in your own words. But now that I’ve let out my frustrations a little, what caused me to get injured in the first place?

Part of me wants to just think that it is a fluke but another part of me says that is a cop out! You see I did have a warning sign that something could be wrong after my long run the week before, and should probably have taken the whole week off. I came up a little sore in the same general area the evening of that last long run. I had run a little harder on the downhill than I normally would have on any other long run. I had also been doing a lot of extra hill running the previous 6 weeks preparing for this race. In hindsight I should have probably given myself at least every other week off from hills, especially as I was also doing two tempo runs a week. Bottom line is I probably crossed that fine line between simply peaking and actually overtraining.

So here I am whining about being injured and it is probably my own fault. Perhaps if I had just taken the whole week off I would not have had the injury. But, there is always the possibility that I was already injured and still would have injured myself more even with the rest. I guess we will never know for sure. Either way, here I am injured and, now I have to deal with it!

So yes I am lucky that I can cycle and swim and even perhaps do some “Pool Running.” I do enjoy cycling although not quite as much as running. Swimming not so much and there is nothing more boring than Pool Running. However, I know that these things will keep me in pretty good shape and getting back to where I was will not be all that difficult because of it.

I am trying to be good and not injure myself more by running before I am fully healed and then I will have to curb my enthusiasm as I start running again and not try and pick up where I left off. From another stand point it is an opportunity to work on my swimming that I have been putting off for a long time simply because I am terrible at it!

So here’s to alternate training and getting healthy again!

Cheers and Happy Trails,

Russ