Wednesday, November 20, 2013

improvements and breakthroughs!

Last week I had my follow-up appointment with the running doctor. He gave me a new medication and said to keep going to physical therapy. I've been out of commission for over two months.

But today was great! I ran three miles this morning without taking walking breaks, and the knee pain never came! That's a huge improvement, since it was the first time I've run at all without pain since this whole thing started.

However, it was really hard. Yesterday at physical therapy we worked on my running form, to get me to stop striking with my heel. Now I'm supposed to kick my legs back more, and man oh man it wears me out. I'm told it's better and will make me stronger and faster, but so far it feels like it takes a ton more energy and intensifies the cardio aspect. I didn't have to walk this morning because of any knee pain, but I actually did take a short walking break just to catch my breath. It was frustrating. But I'm still stoked to think the pain might be leaving (or gone), which might be thanks to the new meds.

In other news, I've been swimming more. And I've recently had a breakthrough and can actually swim longer than ten minutes! In fact, get this, I just swam for thirty minutes without stopping! I went 900 meters, and I think I could have kept going but the pool was about to close.

Project 2014 Triathlon is well underway.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What do you mean "kick your legs back more?" As if you were trying to kick your own behind? Also, nice job with the swimming, will you talk to anyone about your form in the future?

andi said...

Well, I warm up with butt-kicks, only it turns out I can't even manage to do that with my right leg (which isn't the injured leg). Then the run is similar, just toned down a little. And yes, I'd like to take some swim lessons or something for my swimming form, but we'll see.