As far as days go, yesterday was a pretty rough one. I
finally got around to seeing a Doctor.
Kelli from the blog (kind of like Jenny from the Block) suggested Dr.
Brinton at Riverton Hospital, he's a 3:08 marathoner and I really wanted to see
someone who would understand how I felt about running and wouldn't just tell me
to stop unless absolutely necessary.
Going back through my logs, I found the exact workout that this injury
happened. http://robxt.fastrunningblog.com/blog-03-15-2011.html March 15th I
was in New Orleans and did 4 X 1 mile repeats. I remember that work out as quite a breakthrough and was
very excited about where my fitness level had gotten. The next day, I complained of soreness but thought that was
expected after a good hard run, the next day I took the day off, which I seldom
do and should have been the first clue something was terribly wrong. For the next 11 weeks I just
assumed it was a pulled muscle, or tendon, so I started Icying, messaging, and
taking gobs of Ibuprofen, and worst of all kept trying to run through it.
After seeing the doctor yesterday I have found out that I
have a Femoral Neck Stress Fracture,
http://orthopedics.about.com/od/hipinjuries/a/stress.htm I had X-Rays done which did not actually
show the fracture but you can see the signs of the bone trying to repair, and there were no signs of muscle
damage anywhere. After reading up
on this it’s amazing that a stress fracture never really crossed my mind, I have all of the symptoms and none of
the therapy I was doing did anything to help, in fact most of those treatments
are the exact opposite of what I should have been doing, Heat/not ice and no Ibuprofen.
Anyway, the doctor was very blunt and said either stop running now or
you’re going to need a hip replacement or at the very least some sort of
surgery very soon, and the recovery would be much longer. That news at the time was very
upsetting, but after having some time to dwell over it I’m very happy to have a
definitive answer finally. At
least now I can move forward and a least know what I should and shouldn’t be
doing instead of always wondering.
I was all set to write some over dramatic blog entry about
how I was going to leave the blog for a while since it would be to hard to read
about other people running while I couldn’t. Then a couple of things occurred to me, 1. That’s
childish, 2. I’m still the same
person, I still have the same goals,
I just need to figure out a different way to achieve those goals. I realized that I’m a little bit
different than most “runners” out there.
I actually don’t really enjoy running itself, like most people claim
too, I don’t run because I enjoy being one with nature and feeling the breeze
flow through my hair, I personally like to run for the end result, I love the
burn in the lungs after a hard tempo run, I love the feel of sore legs after hill
sprints, and I love finally being in the best shape of my life. I think these differences in me are
what got me to where I am so quickly,
I like to push myself every day.
Which is how I got into this predicament in the first place but I just
have to deal with that.
The doctor did give me hope, recovery for this is anywhere
from 10 -18 weeks typically, It’s
been 11 so far and granted most of that wasn’t recovery but I’m going to give
myself the benefit of the doubt and say I’ve had at least 6 weeks of
recovery, he has told me that the
elliptical trainer is fine, and swimming.
Cycling (not so much) so I have decided to use these tools I have been
given and continue with the same passion I have always had. I know it’s not nearly as cool to be an
ellipticaler as a runner but right now that is my means to an end. I just went and looked back, I ran 325 miles on basically a broken leg over the last 11 weeks. Oops!!
10 elliptical miles, 30 minutes of weights.
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