Hope and Hip Exercises

"Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about"

Alright. I'm back.

Before anything, I'd like to start off by thanking all of the people who encouraged me not to give up on myself. I've gotten a lot of very wise advice from from very wise people in the past few days. I've also come to realize what a wonderful group of people I've surrounded myself with. I can't tell you how much it meant to me that ya'll didn't let me sit here and wallow in self-pity.

That said, I fully realized this morning that I needed to snap out of it. If I'm ever going to kick these injuries and get myself back to running I can't just sit around feeling sorry for myself. So I've been doing my best to be proactive. {This means thousands of sets of hip exercises and constant stretching}

 On Tuesday, after I wrote my last post I realized that I needed to do SOMETHING. So I stopped in to see a physical therapist on my way home from work.

I've known Kurt since I was 15 years old. In 2005 his sport and spine clinic was brand-spankin new and I was a high school sophmore with a fractured leg. He brought me through that, through tendonitis, and everything else along the way. So why didn't I go to him immediatly? Stubborn independance I suppose. Luckily he remembered me and we set up an appointment to see if somehow he would be able to put the fractured pieces of me back together again.

So this morning at 4:40A.M. fueled by 5 hours of sleep and 2 big cups of coffee, I jumped on my bike and rode across town to the clinic.

After an hour we set up 3 appointments for next week and I rode off with even more exercises that I'm supposed to do a few times a day. However, for the first time in a long, long while I started to feel some sort of hope after talking to him. Don't get me wrong. My IT band is apparently more solid than a steel rod. My knee does still hurt. My biomechanics are messed up. But with some hard-core physical therapy it looks like this is something that I will eventually be able to move past.

I went for a 16 mile ride afterwards before I had to leave for work, looked up at the sky and saw the sun peaking out. A sign, perhaps, that my silver lining is out there somewhere, and somehow good will come of this. It will make me a stroger runner but a stronger person as well. It taught me patience and to listen to my body when it's crying out in pain. This injury caused me to buy a bike....maybe it's facilitating my journey to become a professional triathlete.{haha}

In all seriousness however, I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that I'm not going to give up on running, or myself. As humans, we don't really have much if we don't have hope and faith. Losing hope, I learned, means losing everything. Without hope we have no chance.

So here's to the hope that I will be able to run again in time for the season. To hope that doing about a gazillion hip exercises every day will heal my knee. Hope that I continue to run, not just now, but for the rest of my life. Hope that I never give up on myself again.

One week to kick patellofemoral pain butt

Stretch. Stretch. Stretch.
-Hamstring stretching, Quad stretching,Calf Stretching...basically constant stretching
Strengthen and Mend
-I WILL faithfully do my hip exercises every single day. Sometimes twice a day!
-I WILL wear my knee brace at all times OR tape my knee {even though the knee brace is ugly}
-Tape knee until muscles are strengthened/retrained. Kinesiotape is a miracle worker!!!!   
-Foam rolling, massage
-I will stop using the bag of corn in my freezer, I will buy an actual ice pack and be faithful to that as well
-I WILL take a few days of torment rest and  nothingness. {i.e. no running, walking, swimming, biking. just nothing. period.}vomit I mean...yay relaxation
-Physical Therapy :(

Desperate Measures {I'm willing to try anything here}
-Vitamins. I've heard of many many things that are supposed to help my poor knee.
      Ginseng. Is supposed to strengthen tendons/muscles
      Fish oil/omega 3's are supposed to be a natural anti-inflammatory
      Vitamin C-just because it might work.
-The mysterious world of barefoot running.
   I've read a lot that running barefoot can help your muscles retrain themselves so that they track naturally as they're supposed to. It's not well researched but I plan on running barefoot around a soccer field for my first run back.
-I will dedicate myself to reading everything possible on PF syndrome and figure out what I may be doing wrong.

No. More. Injuries.


P.S. Have your own PF pain youre trying to kick?  Click Here