Back in the saddle again

Hey John, what was your injury again? Oh, yeah, a STRESS fracture, caused by too much STRESS on your joints, ligaments bones, and muscles. What caused all that STRESS? Probably too much, too fast, too soon.

Just saying.

I wasn't injured nearly as severely as you and I haven't cracked the 45 mile barrier yet. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

Well I haven't cracked the 12 mile barrier yet, so I'm coming into the running aspect slowly. Biking doesn't really stress the thing at all, which is why feel pretty confident going cycling heavy now. I know I need to be careful of my run pacing - I often don't look at my pacing during a run and tend to go too fast sometimes and realize I should not try to run anything close to "fast" for probably a couple of months. If I look forward to my returning to running plan, I am not supposed to run for an hour at a time for another month. Cycling is easy. Swimming is easy. Running is hard (or at least hard on me).

John Kilpatrick wrote:Well I haven't cracked the 12 mile barrier yet, so I'm coming into the running aspect slowly.

"cracked" is an interesting choice of verbs for someone who has had a stress fracture.

Anyway, the approaching heat should throttle you back some. We're expecting our first 90 degree day on Sunday. Good luck.

Mark B wrote:

John Kilpatrick wrote:Work schedule probably leaves me with a sort of easy day tomorrow, we'll see...

Given how enthused John is to be back at it, anybody want to take bets that tomorrow will be less than "sort of" easy?

Anybody? Anybody at all?

cough cough...

Not trying to pick on you or anything John, just be smart and balance out the running with swimming and other things less stressful to your bones. None of us want to see you re-injured.

Hey to my peeps - miss you guys. I'll just say that my personal life has taken an upheaval and I'm still trying to figure out which way is up. I've been running and cycling when I can but swimming little. Life is not pretty sometimes, but the sun keeps coming up anyway. I'll be "back" at some point, but hope things are well with the 365ers...

I'm running in the 25 mpw range now, so slowly creeping back which is at least a little bit of good news. Longest runs are still just 8 miles, but I'll get there....

Thinking of you John and hoping everything works itself out.

I hope things look up soon. I'm sorry for the tough times. I know they can sure be hard at times. I hope you can keep up your running and swimming as much as is helpful (but running is my answer to quite a few problems).

Saw your FB post about your last week. Not sure how much room you have to work upwards from 211mi on the bike! Keep it fun right now. Pressuring yourself to perform well during your recovery/base while going through personal things is just asking for trouble.

Thinking of you John. I hope everything works out for you.

hang tough buddy.

Sorry to hear things are rough on the personal side. Don't focus too much on training right now.

Stay strong.

John, as much as you support all of our running and are such a good encouraging voice, I am sorry to hear about your personal challenges. It seems in life there are different seasons, not all of them pleasant. That being said, know that you are appreciated and I wish you the best. Here's hoping these become opportunities for personal growth.

Hey all, just checking in - been a while I know.

I started running over the last couple of weeks to sort of give my hip/pelvis a stress test before an appointment with a running doc. I have spoken with my doc in my hometown and he recommended an orthopaedic specialist - seeing someone in Atlanta this Friday (my understanding is he is the running doc for the GA Tech track team). The good news is that aerobically I feel like I could get back into the swing of things if I could string together several months of good running but I can still feel a fair amount of pain in the hurt area when I run anywhere close to "hard." It started to flair up again some so I now sort of have an idea of what I can and can't handle for now. I'm anxious to see what this guy has to say, but my doc said something about a compression plate, which didn't sound good. Wait and see I guess.....

I'm very anxious to see what my outcome will be...

Oh, and on another note - not that I was running well, but it was interesting to me how I seemed to be able to run OK after only a couple of weeks - even a 19 miler (one of two runs I think over 15 miles this year) after months of NO running didn't really feel that hard. That tells me that the insanity/P90x/swimming/and some cycling kept me in a little bit of running shape....

Happy New Year all!!!

Glad you were able to keep up with the cross training while you had to take such a long break from running. Hope you can stay injury free and get back into good pain-free running long term.

Saw a running orthopaedic running specialist in Atlanta on Friday. Good news is that he doesn't think I would need surgery. Took him 2 seconds to conclude that I have a large discrepancy in stability/flexibility between my right and left legs as they rotate within my pelvis. Makes me wonder if that always has been the case as every time something gets hurt it seems to always be in my left leg. In fact, when I run it sometimes seems that my right foot is pointed out and my left foot is pointed in. Coincidence? Who knows. Am going to have another MRI (ouch$$$), but it may just be a discrepancy and soft tissue issue to work through. He mentioned dry needling - no idea what that really is, even after googling it. In the meantime, still running when i can, but no real speed work...

I had dry needling done by a PT for my hamstring and it worked quite well. I had an imbalance issue that was fixed prior to Boston last year. Good luck with everything John.

Good news that you don't need surgery, John! That's got to be a relief.

I dont know anything about dry needling. What is that, and how's it supposed to work?

Also, if you've got some issues with leg rotation while you run, has your doctor talked about some PT? A good set of exercises can do wonders in getting those pesky hip muscles to do what they're supposed to do. Especially after a long layoff, it wouldn't be surprising if they'd gotten weak.

Thanks Mark - I don't really understand it, but dry needling is closely related to accupuncture from what I gather. I am looking into a PT, but have none that, according to my Dr., he would trust anywhere close to me - still looking and trying to figure that out. Atlanta is 3 hours away and he wanted to see me once a week - not happening... From what he thought there was more of an issue with imbalance than with strength - I think actually I am a little stronger overall from insanity and P90x but I'm not naturally a strong guy and will probably have to continually work at it....

John Kilpatrick wrote: In fact, when I run it sometimes seems that my right foot is pointed out and my left foot is pointed in.

so...do you look like a crab when you run? sideways?

John Kilpatrick wrote:Thanks Mark - I don't really understand it, but dry needling is closely related to accupuncture from what I gather. I am looking into a PT, but have none that, according to my Dr., he would trust anywhere close to me - still looking and trying to figure that out. Atlanta is 3 hours away and he wanted to see me once a week - not happening... From what he thought there was more of an issue with imbalance than with strength - I think actually I am a little stronger overall from insanity and P90x but I'm not naturally a strong guy and will probably have to continually work at it....

Sorry, I didn't really explain it so well. When I said strength, I meant imbalance. For example, I discovered to my shock that my butt muscles were so lazy they wouldn't even engage when I was running, which made other muscles do the work. So my quads and hamstrings were strong but my glutes were non-existent. Caused all sorts of chaos. I'm sure you're not *that* far gone

Scary that your doctor can recommend somebody to stab you with a needle but not show you how to get your muscles in balance.

Strength is what an imbalance is related to. Trust me, I've been banged up enough to know that. I've had imbalances with my hamstrings being weaker than my quads that caused some problems with my iliopsoas. The same thing also caused some problems with my piriformis and hip flexors.

Also, I'd be leery of a doctor who doesn't trust ANY PTs near you. That just sounds like arrogance on his part because there has to be a few good ones near you just by accident.

mountandog wrote:so...do you look like a crab when you run? sideways?

Who knows. I was told once that I "do not look like natural runner - in fact, you look akward". Whatever that means.....

Mark B wrote:Sorry, I didn't really explain it so well. When I said strength, I meant imbalance. For example, I discovered to my shock that my butt muscles were so lazy they wouldn't even engage when I was running, which made other muscles do the work. So my quads and hamstrings were strong but my glutes were non-existent. Caused all sorts of chaos. I'm sure you're not *that* far gone

Scary that your doctor can recommend somebody to stab you with a needle but not show you how to get your muscles in balance.

Yes, that is sort of scary - but he did want me in PT sooner rather than later - we talked about muscle imbalance and I told him I was working on strength - but he also explained that you can be strong and still have imbalance issues that need to be addressed. He definitely wants me to begin a program but wanted me working with a PT. Is that good or bad? I don't know, I just want to run comfortably again!

mul21 wrote:Strength is what an imbalance is related to. Trust me, I've been banged up enough to know that. I've had imbalances with my hamstrings being weaker than my quads that caused some problems with my iliopsoas. The same thing also caused some problems with my piriformis and hip flexors.

Also, I'd be leery of a doctor who doesn't trust ANY PTs near you. That just sounds like arrogance on his part because there has to be a few good ones near you just by accident.

Good point, Jim - he might be that, I don't know. I think you and I might be more alike than different b/c I know I have weak flexors/piriformis. I do know that my original Doc, who is a runner and is now a personal friend of mine suggested that I go outside of my area and told me that he himself would not trust anyone in my area to work with on this issue. I don't know... How rocket science is all of this, I don't know. The doc I saw in Atlanta is looking for someone closer to me though...


In the meantime, now my knee is hurting pretty badly. No bigee really, as it was bound to happen putting in a fair bit of mileage pretty quickly. I don't mind backing down and it is something that will get better (it is in the same leg, as everything always is and probably all related) but also the same foot that stepped in a pothole last week. Anyway, I had some outside hope of maybe just running a half or full marathon to at least participate in something again but if I have to wait a while longer I can do it. I have never had runner's knee (or knee pain) before, but it isn't much fun. Ohhhhhh, I want to run so bad. Really run. Patience John, patience.....

Didn't I tell you to start back slowly?

Nick Morris wrote:Didn't I tell you to start back slowly?

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