Vacation

Last week was pretty rough. I had to deal with 7 days of views like this

 

And this

 

And all my runs were on a treadmill like this

 

While looking out at this

Tough life, I know!

Progress

Today I had my longest run yet PPTT (post-posterior tibial tendonitis), 50 minutes of running, with walk breaks every 5 minutes.

 

I can't believe I am already back to running 5 miles! Considering I couldn't run for 7 weeks, and started out running 2 miles 2 weeks ago, I am pretty happy. My PT has cautiously approved me to start training for a set of races in July, and if my running continues to progress without issue I think I will sign up in a few weeks. This particular set of races has been a goal of mine for 2 years so I am hopeful this is finally the year I get to do it.

 

Fingers crossed it keeps going well!

 

 



My race medals finally have a home!

For my birthday last year, hubs designed a custom race medal hanger for me. We were going to hang it up and then one thing led to another and it ended up in the closet for a few months.

We are in the process of redecorating the gym so we finally got around to hanging it up.

 

I love it! It's so nice to have all my medals hanging in one place, they've been in a pile on the floor or hanging in the closet since last year. It has three tiers so it will last awhile, but I am excited to fill it up!

Running is so much better than not running

Today makes one week that I have been RUNNING again!

It has been way too long since I have seen this

My physical therapist cleared me to run last week and said I could start with 20 minutes, and take walk breaks. As long as any pain calmed down within an hour, I could increase 10-20% for each run. So Friday I stepped on the treadmill for my first real run in 7 weeks. I was so anxious! I desperately wanted to have a good run and not feel any pain.

I started out at an easy slow pace and it felt AMAZING to be running again! I had that "walking on sunshine" song in my head. I had decided to take a walk break every 5 minutes, and around the first walk break I started to feel some pain. It wasn't bad so I kept going. 5 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking, times 4. I had never been so happy to run 20 minutes! I had mild to moderate pain off and on, but after stretching and icing, it felt fine.

Sunday I did the same thing, and added on one 5 minute run for a total of 25 minutes. The pain started a little sooner, but was less severe. Wednesday I got to run 30 minutes and had almost no pain in my tendon, but I had bad pain in my left ankle (later diagnosed as shin splints). Then this morning I got to run a whopping 35 MINUTES! Again almost no tendon pain.

Now my dilemma is, when I wear the orthotic in my left shoe I get shin splints, but when I don't wear it I get symptoms of PTT on that side. I'm hoping the shin splints will go away as my leg adjusts to the orthotic.

Being able to run again feels so good, even if I'm on pretty restricted mileage. My PT is really encouraging that I can keep working up to my old mileage as long as it doesn't negatively affect my healing. Music to my ears!