Rode my bike for 40 minutes or so until the rear tire popped and I had to walk home. I'll confess, I tried jogging a little to speed up the 3 mile journey. I did about 30 second jogging intervals every few minutes and it felt quite strange. My left quad and glut are quite unfamiliar with the running motion. It was kind of like one of those dreams where you are on the starting line of a race and the gun goes off but you realize you have forgotten how to run and it is super awkward. When I got home from that adventure I quickly showered and drove to Vail for my 6 week post-op appointment with Dr. Philippon. I got there at my 11 a.m. appointment time and seriously waited for three solid hours in a boring empty office for Dr. Philippon to come in and see me. He must have been in surgery and running way behind. If you think waiting 30-40 minutes for a Dr. to come in the room is annoying, try waiting 3 hours! I kept opening the door and walking down the hall, I went to the bathroom, did my PT exercises in the room, and read things online with my phone (thank goodness for that) but it was painfully mind-numbing. Finally around 2 p.m. Dr. Philippon came in, asked me how I was feeling, did an evaluation, watched me walk and stretch, and told me everything looked great and I could start running again! Three minute visit, tops. He also told me I should never run on a treadmill again. His theory is that with the belt moving under my foot as my foot strikes it causes a motion that pushes my femur forward and puts too much torque into my the front of my hip joint where he operated, so I should avoid it altogether. But then I pried a little more and he admitted that if I was choosing between running on crazy slick ice or treadmill, he agreed that treadmill may be okay a few days a year but to be aware that it may irritate my hip. Then I went downstairs to the PT, Mark who works with all of Philippon's patients and has also had the same exact surgery with Philippon two years ago. Mark gave me a more detailed protocol for HOW to get back into running. I start with 1 minute of jogging/4 minutes of walking X 4 to a max of 20 minutes (that is a total of 4 minutes of running) three times a week the first week. The program maps out an increase of a minute or two every week, so it is a very gradual progression. The hope is that in another 8 weeks I should be able to run 5 days/week for an easy 30 minutes pain-free. Mark also gave me all sorts of new exercises to be doing to get my gluts firing properly and strengthen my quad and medial hamstrings which are very weak right now. It'll be a project, but I'll get back eventually. | 