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!