Saturday, September 19, 2009

slow but steady

Feeling improvement this week, but the real test will be at the hospital on Tuesday. I actually ran for 2 minutes on the treadmill yesterday as part of my 25 minutes of walking and the knee did ok. I'm riding the bike for 20 minutes 3x a week and walking for 20-25 minutes 2x a week on top of my daily strength exercises for the knee. I'm hoping I'll be able to start running again by the beginning of October since I have a 5k at the end of October.

Overall I feel like things are coming together, but it would be nice to run again and watch my food intake so I can focus on losing the rest of this baby weight!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Resting

As soon as I finished the race I started experiencing knee pain. I had been having knee pain on and off since I started riding the stationary bike at the gym, I chalked it up to bad form on the bike and have been experimenting with the settings on the bike. Well, the trail run made me face the knee pain a little more seriously. The pain I experience comes and goes and only with certain movements.

On Monday after the race I did my usual work-out at the gym. I rode the bike and moved onto weights. I was able to do everything except for the seated leg press, yikes, that was painful so I moved on after one set. After I finished up my weight training, I hit the treadmill for 15 minutes, I decided not to push and just walked at a brisk pace, the knee seemed to be ok.

Tuesday arrives and I head to the hospital for my volunteer shift. My knee seems to be tolerating being on my feet and I try to take the elevator more than the stairs just to be on the safe side. Later that evening the pain is really bad. I think I've been blowing it off because the pain comes and goes but man, when it's there, it's excruciating. Before bed I ice the knee and around midnight take an Excedrin pm since I've been tossing and turning and can't fall asleep.

Wednesday morning and this time I'm off to volunteer at a car seat inspection, another 3 hours on my feet. Again, no real problems through out the day. But, evening arrives and man oh man, this is not cool. Another night of ice and Excedrin pm.

Thursday, I decide to be intelligent and stay off my feet. Sat in bed for about 2 hours while the baby napped and kept the knee up. Wow, this resting thing seems to be a good idea. Pain was still there but no where near as intense as the past couple of nights. Iced the knee and fell asleep on my own.

I see my sports medicine doc on Tuesday just to be sure I'm ok and doing the correct things. I think it's ITBS, it makes sense to me. That 5k was all up and down. The plan is to avoid running until I see my doc on Tuesday. I haven't planned on any races for September. October is going to be a busy month, so I would like to spend this month taking care of my knee and running just for fun. Lets hope I'm on the right path!