It's been awhile since I last posted. My injury has been frustrating and to be honest just depressing so I've found that my motivation has been dropping over the past couple of weeks. Here's the story on my diagnosis, treatment and where I stand now.
Here's the verdict...
I had my first appointment at Marathon Physical Therapy in Newton on Friday Feb 18th. My physical therapist Erika, and her grad student assistant Kim asked me how I hurt myself, exactly where the pain started and spread to, and my pain level in the days following the injury. They watched me walk and pulled, poked and prodded both my legs and ankles. The thing was that six days after that fateful Saturday, my knee didn't hurt but I knew that a few miles into a run it would flare up again. This made diagnosing the try cause of my injury even more difficult. Finally after examining my ankles for awhile (didn't I say I hurt my knee?), they asked if I had stepped on any uneven surfaces lately (umm...yes, running on snow and ice while dodging cars every weekend). Their diagnosis in layman's terms was that at some point I must have strained or sprained my ankle without realizing it. The ligaments that run from my ankle bones up the sides of my calf and into and around my knee were weak and couldn't fully support my knee which caused the muscles to seize up in excruciating pain after miles of pounding against them.
My physical therapists taped my ankle to provide the missing support for my knee and they slowly added exercises into my recovery program during each visit. I use a theraband to provide resistance to strengthen my ankle in every direction and do toe curls to pull a hand towel across the floor. I stand on one foot on a pillow to improve my balance and do wall squats to strengthen my calves and hamstrings.
I took a week off from Saturday training and finally on Feb 26th, 16 miles into the Newton Hills and up Heartbreak Hill was on the schedule but I was just supposed to be attempting 4-6 miles (my coach optimistically increased this to 10 so that I could try Heartbreak). The course was icy and uneven yet again and I only made it 3 miles before my knee started to hurt. I tried to let it work its way out for the next mile before we got back to the first water stop at the Community Center but I had to stop and walk the last quarter mile. Another set-back but at least this time I had stopped early enough where I was not nearly in the same amount of pain after the run as the last long run I attempted.
I was convinced that the uneven surface and cold weather was the real cause of not completing the distance so after continuing my physical therapy exercises I tried running on the treadmill. With my ankle in an extra brace, I did 5 miles straight without any pain in my knee! The only trade-off was the blister I got from my brace cutting into the top of my foot but it was worth it in my book. Yesterday I took this success and actually ran 10 miles with just some soreness from having not run double digits in 4 weeks. I'm still going to be very careful by constantly icing my knee and ankle and continuing to only cross-train during the week but it looks like I'm finally on the mend! The frustration is starting to dissipate and I feel fully confident that I'll be able to run the marathon and be properly trained for it for the first time in a month!
