Challenges

I knew it wasn't going to be easy returning to running, but it's proving more challenging than I would have guessed.

Amazingly, the repaired hip feels pretty good.  It gets achey, but I was warned about that, there is no real pain cropping up within the joint.  Yet, there are a million other things rearing their ugly heads now that I'm ground running coupled with the fact that PT has really kicked the strengthening up a huge notch.  I am crazy sore for a day or two post PT in my quads and my knees (posteriorly) are killing me all of a sudden for that duration, as well.  The knee thing, equal in both knees so seemly not related to the surgery, just started about a week ago.  I don't feel it when in PT, but the night after they just kill (I'm not a wimp, either) and they hurt when I try to run.  I've been doing a ton of squats, single leg squats and lunges...I'm guessing one of those are the culprit.  I'll talk it over with them tomorrow, I hadn't mentioned it earlier since I figured it was simply a matter of my muscles adapting to the new program.  I still believe this is the case, but I need to adjust my schedule to have a day off after PT days, I think.

I'm also ready to start slowly weaning off the Alter-G.  It's a combo of things, though I will utilize it in the future when I'm back in full training for recovery days and some overspeed work!  Treadmill running, I'm told, is not great post surgery for me since it makes it difficult to engage my glute correctly.  Also, the amount of support I get from being zipped in isn't forcing me to stabilize myself.  Again, I'll talk all this over with the guys in charge tomorrow, but I'm thinking once or twice a week on the treadmill should be my max right now.  I would LOVE to get cleared for 5 or 6 days a week of outside running, but I don't think that will happen too soon.  I could be way off on that, though, since I seem to feel way better running outside (yet, really-really-really-really out of shape and sucking wind) than I do indoors.  I'm not sure why, it could just be because the duration is so short but I hope it because I'm finally learning the correct pattern to fire my muscles while running.

Speaking of that, it's one of the things that is frustrating me the most.  I have tens of the thousands of miles on these legs, apparently running with a dysfunctional muscle firing pattern.  Dr. Larson warned me about this, and now it's a huge focus of my PT.  I hope I can teach the body to run correctly, but it's not easy breaking old habits.  I feel extremely lucky to have the crew working on me that I do!  It's amazing to see the focus shift away from the hip and to all those little nagging things I've had bugging me since I have starting running!  Now, when I throw out that my arch had bugged me in the past (or any number of things I've brought up), it's not blown off or left to address later.  It gets talked over, tested, and a game plan to make sure it doesn't happen in the future is formed!

I have (many, many) days where I think I'm never going to be back to where I was before this all happened BUT I also have days where I think I'm going to be better than ever with my huge list of issues now getting worked on.  I don't know, that's for sure, but I hope it'll turn out well!  The next few months should be pretty telling, I'm not feeling the most confident now but that tends to change daily :).