Marathon Top 10 Finishes: 7 Bridges ('15), Utah Valley ('13), Salt Lake City ('08), Top of Utah ('07), and St. Louis ('04). Ran around the equator (24901.55) in 4,388 days.
And my largest challenge to date, raise $20,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my cancer survivorship and in memory of those lost to blood cancer...
DONE! $26,403.70
Grew up outside Chicago and joined the blog while I lived in Salt Lake City. Now living outside Birmingham. I am married with two daughters. Wife thinks I'm crazy for doing marathons. And yes I am crazy I'm a scientist for a living...
Saw David today. I was not in the best mood about the visit. He seemed to diagnose me in the first 15 sec and that was that. He gave me another 5 stretches/exercises to do and some heavy duty NSAID... We'll see. My wife reminded me that he is the expert and too take his speed and confidence as a good sign that it is nothing worse. He gave the me go ahead to try running on Thur. PT and weights.
I'll say it felt a little better this morning. I made it all the way into work. It is hard to say if it was the drugs or the stretching though. I'm supposed to do them 4-5X per day and so far so good. I'll just keep looking forward and hope that it was just this SI joint misalignment and will go away as quickly as it popped up on me...
AM: As per the ortho's suggestion I ran today. The first four miles I was tight and sore but at least I wasn't limping. The last mile I finally started to loosen up but he had told me five so that is when I stopped.
PM: PT and weights. FYI, PT is all core and lower body and the weights are only upper body.
Very strange run. First mile felt good. Then second mile my hip started to tighten. I stopped and stretched and my hip actually felt work. But by the next mile my hip had loosened again at the expense of my knee. By the fourth mile things were starting to settle down. At the 5th mile I ran into my neighbor how is training for an Ironman and ran the last mile with him. Overall, I think most of the aches were just working the rust out of the joints. We'll see how I feel tomorrow...
Not too bad. I was a little worried. My knee is still sore but the hip is not bad.
I did some cross-training today. Went to the pool with the family. It is only the third time I've gone swimming in the last three years. Mostly playing around but I did swim 16 laps. It felt hard but it also felt good...
Some PT, maybe weights later. Unfortunately have to work today :(
Caught up on sleep. Work was slightly better. Just as busy but moving in the right direction. Tried a treadmill run. Knee about the same as on Monday. Follow-up with the ortho tomorrow...
Commute run to doctor's appointment. My knee was sore but not as bad as Monday.
The appointment went better and worse than last week. Better in that I got more looked at, worse in that I need more looked at. I spoke with two people again and had a bit more "tested". Hopping on my right leg was not any good for my knee or hip. So I got x-rays. There were no major breaks but there was a calcification or bone fragment in the hip near the injury. Potentially a ligament pulled a piece of bone away...
The conclusion is that if the fragment is causing the pains it could be removed surgically. However, we need a few more things looked at. I have to stop running for now. It is very frustrating as now when I'm walking I do not feel pain so I think that I can try and run again but it is one of those pains that gets worse with running rather than better.
The next plan of action is an MRI on the 19th, then I'll meet with the doctor again to discuss the results and the next plan of action... So probably no updates until Mon the 22nd...
Went to the SLC 10K. Got to cheer on Fritz to another victory and Albert to a solid third place under windy and rainy conditions. The highlight though was the fact that since I was already registered for the series and we hate to waste money my wife ran with my number. It was her longest run in 4 or 5 years and she still managed to break an hour. The down point was even just running her in the last quarter mile hurt my knee/hip. Today's knee pain was both on the outside as well as the "runner's knee" type pain.
Very busy day. The MRI went fine. We'll find out Monday what if anything it tells us. The only thing bothering me since last Thur is my knee though so I'll be curious what they find in the hip. I already have a different doctor in mind for after Monday's follow-up.
A fun and busy family day. In the morning I got to play around the house. Then have a two hour family swim (I swam 8 laps 25 yd b/f and another 12 laps after). Hard to believe that is just over a lap of the track. It sure felt a lot harder. After that went to a wedding with my oldest and danced a little.
Knee a little more sore. Most likely the swimming and not the dancing as we only danced three songs. But not too bad. I'm looking forward to trying to run again this week.
Thank you to those who are still checking in despite the full basket of eggs. Maybe I could have a big breakfast cook off at my house this weekend?...
So here are the findings of the exams.
1. The x-ray the previous
week revealed an os acetabuli
2.
The MRI from Friday revealed: a) mild osteoarthritis, b) degenerative anterosuperior
labral tear, and c) a prominent anterior femoral head neck bump and neutral
acetabular version, predisposing to femoroacetabular impingement.
There is a lot of information
on the web about this and below is one quick explanation with a good link to
additional info. The arthritis does not bother the doctor at this time and he
said surgery may be required as outlined in the link below. The next
appointment is with the surgeon on March 24th. In the meantime the current
ortho said I can run as pain allows... I'll focus on stretching and strength
training to get myself in as good as shape as possible before a surgery and
just have to wait to see wait the second physician says.
WEB INFO:
1. Os acetabuli are bits of extra bone
around the rim of the acetabulum (the hip socket). 2. Dysplastic bump
at the lateral femoral head neck junction suggesting femoral acetabular
impingement means there is an atypical (dysplastic) bump at the area
where the head of the femur meets its neck that suggests that there is
an impingement. That means that the ball of the femur (the head)
doesn't have full range of motion within the socket and damage can
occur when the extra bit of bone hits the cartilage surrounding the rim
of the socket. This causes pain
and can lead to arthritis. Sometimes it can be fixed with debridement
(scraping the excess bone away). The link below has a nice diagram that shows the relationship of the parts to one another.
I will have to say that the mental aspect of this injury is 100X more difficult than the physical. My hip felt fine during the commute run into work today but almost every step aggravated my knee. Another super busy day at work. 5 of the last 10 days I've gone back at night, I know I'm compensating for the not running. At least I do it in a productive manner.
Commute walk. It is harder to walk in slop than run in slop. We woke to >1in snow but it was gone by the time I got home. Knee still more sore than the hip. PT and strength.
I'm still not convinced that the labral tear is the whole story for my leg pain but here is an interesting take on the surgery the doctor talked about for me.
Today was a good and bad day. It was great in that my wife raced the farthest she has ever raced and my daughter ran a full mile. It was bad in that it finally really sunk in how I've not been running. It was what it is. 3 miles walking and my exercises at least the day was perfect outside for our activities and I found out that our sushi restaurant of choice is keeping $1 nigiri and 1/2 price rolls through the end of May!
Low key day. Just stretches and PT. I have to admit the 50K CC Ski Race was very exciting. I'm not a die hard fan of the winter Olympics but that finish and just the fact that there were still 15 in it with 5K to go was pretty amazing.
