A Pain in the Butt

"Popliteal tendinitis. Hamstring strain." These are the new daily terms in my life that I have been cursing and obsessing over that were introduced to my vocabulary by my wonderful sports-oriented physical therapist. Based on my presentation and the amount of "crunch" he's found during Graston (more on this later) he is 99% certain I extensively irritated the insertion of the popliteal tendon because of a strained BF tendon (they follow similar tracks). Oh lucky me. He estimated 2-4 more weeks of no running (for a total of 7 weeks - gross!) but didn't see the need for me to get an MRI or see my BFF ortho surgeon yet.

So how did this occur? A variety of reasons. I up'd my speed on the treadmill by about 1 minute per mile for the same weekly mileage and added a few extra miles here and there. I have a weak butt. I have even weaker hips. I have tight hamstrings. All these things combined = bad news bears. Which is why instead of January being the month of speed and prehab, it became the month of the butt. Which my PT has been kicking, for reals. At the end of our HOUR LONG session, in which I literally do not stop moving, he had me sweating bullets and every muscle in my core and lower half were shaking. All these old people getting massaged and stretched on their pillowy tables watched me as I balanced on a board and had weighted balls tossed at me. This guy who probably has never run a day in his life, recovering from his knee replacement, made a comment about how much I was shaking as I did my 100th single leg dead lift for the night. I ALMOST KILLED HIM. Not to mention I was very hangry (these 5:30pm sessions after a long clinic day leave me ravenous). After getting my butt kicked, I get a nice painful metal to skin massage aka Graston to get all my crunchy scar tissue out and get the blood flowing to behind my knee. I feel sore for the hour after but great at night (then painful the next day, per usual).

For those of you interested in strengthening your booty, 5 days a week I do the following core and butt work. After I'm running again and have more strength, we will cut it down to 3 times per week.

Butt Booster:
-1 min forearm plank
-30 secs single R leg bridge, 30 secs single L leg bridge
-1 min air humpers (thanks OUAL for the name)
-1 min no arms bicycle
-1 min side plank R, 1 min side plan L
-1 min modified bird dog
-1 min clamshells R, 1 min clamshells L
-20 side steps with band to L, 20 side steps to R
-1 min single leg dead lift L, 1 min single leg dead lift R
REPEAT 2X for a total of 3x through the circuit.

Not me (thanks internets), but this is my life.

The entire process takes about 30 minutes plus or minus. I've only done these for a week and I am already starting to feel stronger. My knee still hurts, daily, which is discouraging but I am leaving for Nicaragua in one week where I will not be able to run as frequently for safety and work reasons so maybe this is good timing. I can embrace my month long rotation without worrying about where I can run or if I will be safe. I'm still mad at myself for getting injured but I am trying really hard to LET IT GO.

Still Injured

It's official. This is the worst injury I have had from running (can't say ever, that would be junior year of high school on the receiving end of a slide tackle in soccer when I blew out all lateral ligaments of my ankle and part of my achilles tendon, but I digress). I initially thought I pulled my calf muscle but as the injury "settles in" I am realizing that it is most likely biceps femoris tendinitis. I am beginning to freak out as it has been exactly 1 month since my last "real" run (5.5 miles tempo on the treadmill). The last minor running injury I had lasted a week and was during half marathon training. Before that was when I started running and developed a little PF, which resolved after 2 weeks. Blergh.

So I have been aggressive about rehab and icing. Here is a typical day:
-5:45: wake up, ice.
-6:00-7:00: swim or bike. plus hip and core on T/T/S.
-8:30-5:00: work (on my feet all day), rocking my compression socks
-5:30: ice. study.
-8:30: ice.
REPEAT.

What kills me is the 8-5 with no icing and being on my feet all day but I can't exactly say, oh no I can't see the next patient because I have to ice my knee. Ya, not happening. So after another half hysteric conversation with my boyfriend (emergency medicine consult for free) we decided that I should contact a professional.

my study partner is lazy.

Sample daily convo:
Me: I am never going to run again wahhh. *insert daily complaint of weight gain, boredom, increased anxiety, lack of fitness, loss of social running group*
Andy: Chelsea, you are an athlete. You've recovered from worse injuries. You see people dying everyday, keep it in perspective.
Me: *in my head, flashback to 6 months of crutches and painful patient losses* Okay you're half right and no you're wrong this is the worst injury what am I going to do, I'm never going to run a marathon.
Andy: Call the doctor or quit complaining.
--> 2 weeks after he started recommending this, I've caved. Doctor/PT called.

I hate going to the doctor, especially when they most likely won't have anything to do for me but recommend an MRI (highly doubt any sort of tear as pain is intermittent with no swelling or bruising) and physical therapy. I beat them to the punch and called my old physical therapy place and got on the cancellation list ASAP. It will be nice to get a professionals opinion on my rehab plan and see if there are any exercises they'd recommend. Also possibly get a little ultrasound stim to hurry this process up. I feel so bad because I feel like I'm letting the Nuun team, Lindsey/Out for a Run Training, and my 2014 race goals down. Add to this, my trip to Nicaragua in 2 weeks where I likely won't be getting much exercise and losing even more of my fitness.

I recognize I come off as fairly negative and annoying but look at it this way. Except for this month on my outpatient clinic, I deal with dying children on a far too frequent basis. I see horrific diseases and devastated families and running is my time to throw on dirty gangster rap and let physical pains override the emotional ones. It's my "me" time and my time to reset. I realize that not running is not as bad as cancer or poverty, believe me. But it's really hard to lose the one thing that is all mine and helps me to keep doing what I do.

On a positive note, I've done more core work in the past month than I have in the past year and I am starting to have some serious ab definition. Lauren Fleshman, I'm coming for you.

Abs and Soul.

Injured

What can I say, the title says it all? I am INJURED. Not the "oh I need to take an extra rest day off to get rid of this twinge" injury but a real, no running for 2+ weeks injury. The last time I took this much time off of anything, be it soccer/yoga/elliptical/running was when I had my final ankle surgery and was down for the count. I am pretty devastated. I wanted 2014 to be the year of running, my first full year that I dedicated to improving my weekly base mileage and hit some goal times/PR's across the board. So far... I am doing none of that. 

No relevance to this post, I just love my dog (6 months ago he was this small)

I was on vacation for the month of December and decided that I wanted to incorporate more speedwork into my weekly running schedule (read: start doing speedwork). I guess I didn't think about how I was increasing my mileage (albeit only by a few miles) but also running the majority of them at a pace 1-2:00 minutes faster than my normal. I got a little too aggressive and am paying the price. Looking back at my dailymile log I had some "knee" pain early December but was able to run through it until a few days before Christmas when I realized something was actually wrong. I think my last decent run was 5 miles total with 800 repeats or some shit like that at a pace that I probably shouldn't have been running and the next day when I went to take the dog out I had sharp pain around the head of my fibula. I took 4 days off completely, then tried to run again. No dice. Pain came back immediately so I hopped off the treadmill (it's been less than 5 degrees for the past 3 weeks where I live, there are no outdoor runs for this girl) and did a few miles on the elliptical which felt fine. Blergh. Fast forward a week of rest again and I try to run an easy pace on the TM and 5 minutes in the pain returns behind my knee.

Read: I really messed something up. I go back and forth whether it's ITBS, lateral biceps femoris inflammation, or a gastroc tweak/pull but whatever it is, it hurts. And it's not going away without some proper TLC. I felt lame emailing the head of the Nuun Ambassadors being like "oh hey thanks for choosing me, by the way I won't be racing for the month of January or February" but you know what? She's an athlete and I bet she totally gets it and how frustrating all this is. I just need to learn to chill out and roll with it.

Ben and Jerry's Mint Oreo. Charlie does my stress eating for me.

So here I am, entering my third week of no running. Lindsey (my coach) cooked up a plan for the next 2 weeks that involves NO RUNNING. Shoot me. But being a rational medical professional (almost) I completely agree with her and will embrace my weeks of biking and swimming. This will actually be hilarious because I dove in high school and was forced to do the relay when the "c" team was missing a girl. Let's just say I wasn't doing them any favors. I also have a couple days per week to do core work and also some hip exercises that I will hopefully stick to every day. I'm hoping that while giving my knee/calf a break from the pounding of the TM I can build up a stronger core and strength my hips to prevent this crap from happening in the future.

THIS IS THE YEAR OF PREHAB. I'm just starting it off with a mix of pre and rehab ;)