It's been one month since I last posted here, and 2 months now since 'the knee injury'. What a roller-coaster this past 2 months have been! I've been through pain, worry, frustration, depression, set backs, small advances, a defeated attitude, and now most recently encouraged that I'm finally near the end of this ordeal. I have been going to PT for 5 weeks...first at 3 times a week, then 2 times weekly, and now I'm down to once a week sessions. I've been doing all of my prescribed exercises and stretching religiously along the way in order to get this knee fixed. On July 23rd I was finally allowed to jog and did a whopping 5 minutes on the treadmill at my PT session. I was so happy because I didn't have any pain while running and thought it was the start to my comeback. This was the Facebook status I posted that morning...
Unfortunately I had a return of symptoms later that evening and the next day with pain on stairs...it was emotionally very hard. Another whole week of rest and ice before I could try running again, and it was devastating to me. But, I was allowed to try the 5 minute jogging trial again the next week and this time I didn't relapse into pain. Slowly I have been adding time to my jog-time and trying to find the threshold my knee will allow. This past Thursday I ran 25 minutes on the treadmill without any rebound symptoms. I have been asking for a week now if I could try and run outside, but my therapist wanted me to continue with the treadmill since it has more give and recoil. I mentioned in passing that the Chicago Marathon is less than 2 months out now ; ) Friday I was given the green light to try an outside run over this weekend. Yesterday I headed out on a gorgeous sunny and 74 degree morning for my first outside run in quite sometime.
I of course did my dynamic stretching routine first, taped up with KT tape (the most wonderful stuff ever!), and walked a 5 minute warm-up before I cautiously began my run. My plan was to do the Galloway run/walk/run method at a 3:1 ratio (which is what I plan to do on marathon day) and either stop if I felt any discomfort in my knee AT ALL or if I reached 5 miles. I'm happy to report I made it the whole 5 miles without any pain. And the 5 miles was relatively easy for me with the walk breaks intermixed in. I've lost quite a bit of fitness and endurance in the 2 months I've been sidelined so that aspect also gave me new hope for fall races. Looks like I will be a Galloway-girl for any runs over a 5K for awhile, but that is great by me. I'm happy to be out on the road again and pain-free!!
So now I'm in restart mode. I am going to take it slow during the week with low miles/time and then try and extend my long run on the weekend by a few miles each week. I'm going to listen to my body in order not to derail my progress with doing too much too soon...which is probably what got me in this predicament in the first place. If nothing else this injury has made me a smarter runner, and I'll probably be better off in the long run because of it.