Spending money and making commitments

I went back to the office today after two weeks away. Bleh. Transcribing interviews leads to a number of things: excessive transcribing, random emailing, and of course, race registration.

Here's my official line-up for the 2010 season thus far:

April 3rd: Harry's Spring Run-off - 8K

May 2nd: Sporting Life - 10K

May 30th: Women's Half Marathon and 5K - 5K

July 18th: Gravenhurst Give-it-a-Tri - 400m swim, 20K bike, 2.5K run

September 26th: Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Half Marathon

I plan to register for a running clinic in June to prepare safely for the half, and hopefully to also meet some other runner's in the neighbourhood. Oooooh! Exciting stuff this is. Looks like I also need a race for August.

I mentioned yesterday some foot pain I was experiencing a few weeks ago. I have no idea what it was and I just left it alone and haven't been running since. It's feeling fine now, but I'm still afraid that I might have a stress fracture. I'm going to stick to the plan of laying off the running for the rest of the month, which will leave me two months to prepare for the 8K. No problem.

I think I've spent about $250 on the events listed above which is kind of steep considering the fact that my mortgage leaves me basically house poor.

Also, I got an email at the office today, offering a special employee discount at my current gym. Even as an existing member I can qualify for this special, which would mean paying the entire annual amount up front, but also saving $150 overall. I have to decide whether this is worth it.

Alright, back to work! Transcribing is such a dream...

A new beginning

I haven't blogged in soooo long. But I've got some fresh motivation so let's see how it goes.

A basic recap: the knee is back in action! I began playing ultimate again this past Spring, and played it all through the summer. I also took up running, slowly training to do a 5k with the Couch to 5k program that I found on itunes, and then increasing up to a 10k race in October. I was running various distances 4 times a week up until two weeks ago when I had a pain in my foot that I couldn't explain. So I've been on a bit of a running hiatus over the holidays which is fine by me.

Since I started running and playing ultimate in June I lost 10 pounds, going down from a pretty high starting point of 180 to a very nice 170. At 6'0'', I find my average weight over the last decade or so has been about 173 so I'm doing alright. I was a bit lower than 160 two years ago

and felt really great, but I can't complain right now.

The best part for me about running has been the feeling of accomplishment and success as I slowly increase the distances and time that I run. There is so much that can be improved upon, and nothing is better than feeling improvements. Working towards that 5k goal, and then the 10k goal has been hugely inspiring.

So, the plan is to lay out some goals for this upcoming year.

January: I plan to let my foot heal by laying off the running for most of the month. I will be playing ultimate, lifting weights, doing my yoga-esque class at the gym, and hopefully get started with some spinning. Maybe I'll throw some swimming into the mix too. I aim for a total of 5 days of some kind of fitness a week.

February: Continue with the above, but add dodgeball to the schedule. Will that be a workout? Not sure. Dodgeball Sundays, Ultimate Tuesdays, and some other good stuff in and around that. Back to running. Hopefully my foot will be fine and I'll bring the running back.

March: Achilles St. Patrick 5k - March 14th.

April: Spring running, casual biking, swimming, and weights.

May: Begin Triathlon training. May Women's 5k.

June: Ride for Heart, tri training.

July: Tri-a-tri in Gravenhurst

August - October: half marathon training. Half marathon September 26.

That is what I envision as a very crude outline of my upcoming year.

I'll see how it goes!

Three months later

3 months post op

It's been three months!!

I have been as lazy of a rehabber as I've been a blogger. I hate to say it but I've quit physio and have instead been going to the gym not quite enough and working specifically on rebuilding my leg muscle not quite enough.

I'm bad.

But I feel pretty good! I can do almost anything. I can kneel on very soft things like beds and folded up yoga mats. I can go down stairs basically normally.

My knee gets stiff when I sit at my desk or in a show for a while.

And the scar isn't really looking that great in some spots that were more scabby during the earlier recovery days. Let's take a look.


I try to remember to put special scar oil stuff on it twice a day but it's hard to say now whether that helps.

But all in all I'm doing well! I'm going back to the surgeon next week for another follow up so we'll see what he has to say.

My First visit with the surgeon

Post op week 7

I had physio yesterday and apparently I need to strengthen my hamstrings and improve my balance. Psh. I'm getting tired of going to physio. Can I stop now?

I didn't have a chance to go to the gym yesterday or today, though. :( Did I go Monday? Hmm. I can't recall.

Today I met with my surgeon and all was great. I thanked him for his good work, and he thanked me for being a great patient. He said everything is going according to plan. Apparently I'll be feeling perfect by three months but still can't do real sports for six months. Six months! That means I can play ultimate again in the Spring season. Yay Yay!!! :) I'm excited to play play play.

And I'm thinking of takng up running. What do you think about that?

Anything else new with the knee? Well, no, not really. I can dance a jig, more or less. Probably just as well as I ever could before, in fact. I feel almost normal! I still can only kneel on a thick mat or a pillow and even that feels weird. And my leg feels sore if I have to stand for an hour, say, at the Of Montreal concert. Otherwise I'm very happy!!

Updates!

Six weeks and six days post op

Yesterday I hurried up the subway stairs in a jog-like manner! It wasn't quite as fast as a normal jog up the stairs, but it was a jog up the stairs nevertheless.

Three days ago I began working out once more on the elliptical trainer, in addition to the stationary bike.

Tomorrow I've got physio and Wednesday is my first follow up appointment with the surgeon. Alright!

Range of Motion continues

Six weeks and two days post op

And now we're onto week six of this ever-exciting adventure in knee surgery land! Welcome, boys and girls!

Let me think, what happened in the last week. Well, for one, I went hiking in the Canadian Shield. Yes, that's right. I traipsed up and down through the rocks on a two hour hike. I can't say it was easy - I had to go very slowly, particularly when descending, and my left leg felt it the next day because I depended quite a lot on it to climb up things, but hey, I did it! I twisted my right knee oddly once and feared for my graft but all seems fine.

Yesterday at physiotherapy I had good news and bad news. I'll start with the good. I have 135 degrees of bend!!! That's a mere five off from normal! Wow! And we weren't even really pushingit to its max when it was measured. How sweet it is to be almost normal. The other good news is that my physio had me walk across the room for him. I did that no problem. Then he had me JOG across the room for him. And I did it too! It was the first time I'd tried jogging and it was no big deal. I've since jogged a couple of times here or there, like through the halls of my condo on my way to the garbage shute, for example. It feels good.

My bad news is that my extension, which is supposed to be zero degrees and which was zero the first time I went to physio so I figured it must still be, is off by two degrees. I now feel like I must straighten that bad boy out. Extension is very important, so they say. My physiotherapist was less concerned about it that I was.

The other day I decided enough is enough. I'm sick of limping down the stairs. So I've been taking the stairs down whenever possible and working hard on using the muscles required to do so normally. I believe it's the quads that really deal with descending. I think in the two days that I've been making this conscious effort I've started to feel an improvement, though it's still quite slow going.

I went to body pump today and actually put a bit of weight on for the squatting section. I forget now how much weight it was. I think 5 pounds in total. I also went swimming this week as well as biking at the gym. On the bike I've been doing 3o minutes of actual cardio biking and then five or ten minutes with the seat as low as possible, working on my bend. It seems to loosen things up.

That's all the week six knee news for you. Oh, except I've now spent about $500 on knee-surgery related expenses (most physio). I very much look forward to NOT having a $55 a week physio expense. Though happily I've been managing to pay for it out of my normal monthly budget instead of going into savings like I feared I'd have to.

Next week I have my first follow-up appointment with my surgeon!

I got new shoes!

5 weeks

It's been five weeks since surgery and here's where I'm at.

I think about my leg 65% of the time.

I've done two bodypumps and two bodyflow classes with no trouble. Except I can't kneel so that can get ackward.

When I walked around a lot on Queen street my leg got heavy and tired and uncomfortable.

Going up stairs is painless though I can feel my muscle is not strong, meaning it takes a bit more effort to do.

Going down stairs is still difficult for me. There's a strange interior pain that's almost like a block somewhere deep inside that kicks in sometimes when I go downstairs. My muscle is not strong enough to lower my bodyweight smoothly from one step to another. I can do it very slowly, quicker with a handrail or two, and even quicker if the handrails are close together and I can "crutch" down. But that doesn't count.

I haven't been elevating or icing, except the other day when I walked too much.

I started up with a new physio today. My old physio recommended that I alternate between the two for a variety of physio styles. This one had me do a much more physical session as opposed to the relaxed massage-esque sessions of the last five weeks.

I did:
- about ten minutes of the muscle stimulation machine(is this a crock or what?)
- 3 sets of ten leg lifts lying on each side (so adductor and abductor muscles, I think.)
- 4 sets of seven hamstring curls, which had me standing with the front of my thighs against the edge of the bench and a five pound weight on my calf, lifting the weight up behind me by pulling my heel up.
- 3 sets of ten things where a strap attached to a weight machine went around my knee, and I had to bend and straighten as if I had a ball between my knees, sort of. I felt the same "going down the stairs" pain during this one.
- some supported squats
- a few step ups onto that squishy half ball thing
- a bit of balancing on a balance board.

Everything was easy.

This physiotherapist had a helper girl who kind of did all the work. The guy himself wasn't particularly friendly and I didn't feel motivated or cared for or encouraged like I do usually when I see my other guy. :( They haven't measured my flexion in two weeks!!! Booo. Next week I will insist.

I'm thinking about biking to my friend's house this evening without any approval to do so. Hope that's okay...