M'kay

Walked 6 minutes at 3.2 MPH at Physical Therapy.  Wow.

Actually, things seem to be improving.  The pain is still there with certain actions but the trigger points are receding.   Where last week I couldn't squeeze a soccer ball between my knees without pain, this week I can get a decent squeeze going before the pain hits.  Small victories.  My hope is that things will accelerate going forward.  On the plus side, with all this focus on seldom used core muscles, I now know what they are and do and have gotten strength I've not had previously.  On the down side, I'm at +10 pounds and counting.

Test run on the treadmill at the PT.  6 minutes of walking to warm up, then 4 minutes of an easy jog, then 2 minutes of walking.  Boy, I felt like I was running like Phoebe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_0Ta_DIWuU) and I'm pretty sure my PT agrees after watching my gait with poorly disguised horror.  

So adductor strength has improved somewhat and the pain has faded from being sharp to being slightly less sharp, but 4 hours post-run I've already got soreness.  Hopefully upping the nitro patch dosage will help speed things up.  Next monday's PT session is the earliest possible next run in my future.

8 whole minutes of running on the treadmill at PT today.  Will see how things feel over the next couple of days (I already know because I'm a couple days behind, but you all have to wait in suspense!!!)

Not good.  Felt a bit sore the morning after Monday's short run.  Was given clearance to run 6 minutes today, but I self-terminated the exercise at 4 when the pain started back.  It felt just like it did about a week before I stopped running back in Jan (?) when the injury first hit.

So today, we did more gait analysis.  I have a screwy left foot....well, left leg.  My foot when held straight is very supinated and when I dorsiflex it, hits a resistance point and wants to rotate externally (turn out).  So when I'm running, my foot lands relatively straight all the way to toe off, where I get a rather extreme heel whip.  The lower leg/foot externally rotates to about 30-45 degrees and doesn't straighten again until it's moved under me and is no longer dorsiflexed.

This is important because of what it's doing to my hip/groin.  Essentially, I'm adducting pretty violently with every stride to bring my foot back in line with my running path.  So much so that my PTs initial take on this is that I should *stop* aligning my foot forward and just let the foot splay (as my right foot does, but to a lesser extent). 

Unfortunately, this introduces some other issues....namely, some pretty severe overpronation (not to mention the loss of efficiency from the whole ankle/achilles lever).  So the solution.....orthotics.  Color me not enthusiastic.  I already have 3 pair of prescription orthoes and am not a big fan.  Of course, *these* orthoes will be much better....right. 

So, aside from the mild-to-moderate depression I'm in now going from finally starting back to running to sidelined indefinitely again, now I am faced with no clear path to resolving the issue satisfactorily.  Part of me is tempted to go find a surgeon to take my lower limbs apart as needed to rebuild me the way the human body was designed.  It worked for the bionic man, right?

As an aside, forgive me for not closely following some of your blogs like I used to.  Honestly, its tough for me to read about all the miles everyone is putting in and the races they're going to when I can't even jog to the mailbox.  Okay, enough self-pity blogging for one day...