Week 20

Ran for half an hour NON-STOP last Saturday at 10 min/mile and the knee felt good afterwards!

Watch out world, for I am back! (At least for running) This means I can put in at least a quality 9 miles a week. I told the physical therapist yesterday that I am looking to do 20 miles a week and she said "whoa." Heh.

Put in a good workout at the PT office though yesterday. Straight leg and side leg lifts at 11lbs felt good, can probably jump to 12 lbs soon. Switched the leg press up to 5 plates (from 4), using one leg, and that almost killed me. Barely finished it, it was funny walking afterwards for a minute or two. I expect to have sore quads this evening. Hamstring curls up to 3.5 plates from 3.

Did some jumps that felt a bit funny in the knee. Definitely need to keep doing those and get the knee used to jumping. This is important, as I will be getting back to dancing.

Week 19

I haven't updated for a while, but only because things are progressing fine.

I am still attending PT twice a week, though that will be scaled down to 1 visit a week in two weeks. I've been doing whatever PT exercises I can at my work gym by myself on Fridays, and that will switch to Wednesdays and Fridays once the PT visits go to 1 a week.

This week at the PT, we started on some light straight-up jumps and side-to-side jumps. This is to get my body used to the jumping and impact sensation. Running is doing a bunch of that already anyway though.

My running is not progressing quite as fast and took a bit of a setback over New Year's. I went up to 8 minutes running, 2 minutes walking, but perhaps it was a bit too fast, or a bit too early. I also decided to try to lose weight over Christmas and New Year's, which was a bad idea.

So, I ate too little (had a net calorie loss) and ran anyway, didn't quite get enough sleep, and so my body did not recover well. This malnourishment surely contributed to my knee feeling beat up on Sunday Jan 3rd, where I had to cut my run to just 0.7 miles, because my knee hurt. So I skipped my run on Tuesday and went back to running on Thursday.

This time I am keeping it to a 10 min/mile pace, strict, until I can consistently do 30-minute 10 min/mile runs without pain the next day.

Today will be another 8/2 run.

I also decided to try to switch from logging my running at runningahead.com to the Daily Mile instead. I like the social aspect of it. It's not quite as sophisticated as RunningAhead, but I don't need to be quite so anal in logging my runs anyway. Also, the DailyMile has Garmin import coming soon, so by the time I'm out running on the street, I'll be able to upload my Garmin 305's GPS data to the site. Here is my profile: http://www.dailymile.com/people/astral303

I also looked at my recovery schedule and I technically have only 1.5 months left until I am fully recovered. Yay!

Week 16: Day 1

Christmas week: skipped PT on Friday, did nothing at all, but continued running.

On Wednesday, the PT introduced a squatting exercise, which seemed to put some pressure on that right knee... no pain, but definitely yet another thing that I need to get used to.

Running-wise, I did 7/3 on Tuesday and the knee felt good Wednesday morning, so I upped it to 8 minutes run and 2 minutes walk on Thursday. The knee felt a bit sore Friday, so Saturday I continued with 8/2 (treadmill, 10 min/mile pace, 0.5 incline). I could feel the knee while running Saturday and it was kinda sore on Sunday. So I am staying with 8/2 until my knee feels good the day after.

But yeah, Saturday marked 12.4 miles of running distance since my ACL tear (and heck, since a long time...).

Attached is the picture of my daily run distances since I got back into it, all 12.4 miles of it

:)

I've stopped consistently stretching on my non-PT days (only on running days), I keep forgetting or am too busy. I keep forgetting to ice the knee as well. I need to get back into these habits, at least keep my stretching going every day. Still, given that I do stretch 5 days a week (3 PT days + 2 running days, more like 6 now), it can't be that bad.

Week 15: Day 1

So yeah, Sunday finished up the first week of back to running! I managed to log 5.5 miles this week, or 7 miles including last Sunday. The Sunday run was three 7-minute intervals with 3-min walk breaks, at a 10 min/mile pace (treadmill and all).

Today, the knee felt a bit sore in the morning and there was some clicking, so the physical therapist advised me to hold it at 7-minute running intervals until the knee doesn't feel sore the day after.

My cardio is definitely not what it used to be, but I know that the only way is up!

During last week, I took on doing a balance and reach on a foam pad, which is considerably more difficult. Today, Monday, we switched to doing one-legged leg press, starting at 3 plates. 3.5 plates felt a little too hard on the knee and the release was kinda jerky. I think next time the 3.5 should feel OK.

At the hamstring curl machine, went up to 2.5 plates of weight and that felt just slightly difficult to finish. I could probably do 3 plates and barely finish, though we may stick with 2.5 plates one more time.

My quad control/leg control keeps getting better for doing the step-down exercise.

The Christmas week is coming up. I'm going to have to find a way to get a little PT in on Friday, the day of Christmas. Not sure if that will happen, but it would be nice if I get something done.

Week 14: Day 1

Two days ago, Friday, I visited the PT with the new script from the surgeon. The PT offered their own version of the "return to jog" program, which consists of going for 5 min walk, 5 min run half-hour sessions. Then progressively turning down the walking by 1 min and adding 1 min to running until there is no more walking for half an hour. This would put me at the same 9 miles a week milestone, so I decided to follow the PT's suggested protocol.

Sunday was a great day: did my first run. I followed the 5-min walk/run protocol and logged 1.5 miles, about half mile per a 5 minute run session. Total 2.3 miles distance. This was on a treadmill.

The first few strides felt weird! Also a few times my right knee buckled a little bit, but I held up just fine... those few times, it was a bit of an uncertainty after the strike: "can I hold it?" yes I can!

The 2nd and 3rd 5-min run sessions were more confident than the first one. I think the first one was "OMG am I really doing this?," followed by 5 minutes of thinking about it while walking and the rest were "yeah, we doin' this!"

So hells yeah. Tomorrow another 5-min walk and 5-min run! Then Thursday 4-min walk and 6-min run.

After the run, this evening I felt some soreness: inside thigh on the left leg, quads on the right leg, both calves and the right shin.

At today's PT, I stayed at 10 lbs ankle weights, but upped the leg press to 7.5 plates. The PT showed me a new exercise, where I do hamstring curls off a physioball, while raised in a bridge position. I also did 4-lb ankleweights on standing hamstring curls.

Week 13, Day 4: Orthopedic Surgeon Followup

Wednesday's PT was fine, stayed at the same weights for all exercises. The PT measured my strength and range of motion. I have full extension and 142 degrees of flexion. The hamstring strength is 4/5, not quite fully there.

Visited the Dr for a 3-month followup today! Told him about the tales of hamstring straining woes, to which he replied that incidents are bound to happen during such a long recovery period.

The ACL is intact and strong! The Dr tested the knee and did the pivot test. Everything checked out, so, hurray, my aftermarket ACL is still in business! Overall, he said my knee is looking great and I am right on schedule.

He said that the last bits of swelling will take some time to come down and he'd like to see that fluid gone. He said the incisions are as dark as they are going to get and are going to start fading in 3 months. He gave me a new script for exercises, saying that I need to start doing more weight training. I don't have the script handy, but it included lunges.

Also, I am now cleared for running! The objective is to start out slow. Start by walking for an hour. If that's OK, then an easy 1 mile, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 miles, 3 times a week, every other day. So that puts me back to at least 9 miles a week, which is quite a good baseline to get back to! Next week will be the walk-an-hour week. Not sure I'm going to work running an easy 1 mile every other day into the Christmas week, but I'll try my best.

He also said that slight discomfort in the knee is OK, major pain is not. He said the knee won't feel "normal" until about a year out (and that's OK).

I asked him about my step down exercises being somewhat jerky and not having that smooth muscle control. He replied that I'll work through all of this with the physical therapy training.

Week 13, Day 1

2nd week of true hamstring strength building continues. The PT visit today increased the ankle weights from 9 lbs to 10 lbs. I also switched the bridging from my calves resting on the physioball to my feet resting on top of it. This way, my knees are bent a lot more and this makes bridging more difficult.

Finally, we also switched to a step-on and step-off kind of an exercise, which involves lowering my left foot off the front of the step, while bending the right knee. This is difficult to do smoothly and my muscles feel kinda "spasmy"/not smooth doing it. Same applies to stepping back off the step on the ground, where lowering my body weight off the step still causes me to crash on the last two inches of movement (and the movement is not that smooth either).

The Dr followup is Thursday, Dec 10th.

Next week was supposed to be the week that I resume running (the week after the dr followup). However, my hamstring strength has been delayed by two weeks due to injury and so I think that will delay my return to running as well.