Well, its been several months since my last blog post. Looking back on that post now, I was so hopeful. But that didn’t last long.  I stopped seeing the physical therapists, ortho doctors, and chiropractors shortly afterwards. The reality was slowly sinking in. I simply can’t run! I felt like I had given the therapies enough time to work (since March of 2018), but things were not getting better. It’s hard! Running has always been a huge part of my life.  I simply gave up. I was depressed. I didn’t feel like writing about it.

I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the knees (without an x-ray I might add), but I didn’t and still don’t want to believe that is what I have. Denial? The diagnosis was based on symptoms and my age. Typical. I believe this all happened during “treatment” of my ITB syndrome. My treatment consisted of  running at an incline of 10 on the treadmill. During that time, I think I was overloading the knees to the point that it caused injury….or…yeah, maybe it brought on the arthritis or maybe it made some already existing mild degenerative and painless arthritis worse.  The thing is, I didn’t have any knee pain prior to this treatment that went on for months. None! And now I have bilateral knee pain???? Tell me you wouldn’t be a little frustrated! Seriously!

Apparently, I am a quad dominant runner which can lead to weak hamstrings and glutes. One of the exercises that my PT had wanted me to do was a hamstring curl on this machine. I couldn’t do it as I have mentioned in a previous post, or I did very few reps without any added weight. I would watch other people just knock them out like it was nothing. I was straining to do just one. 

My point is that I believe these obvious weaknesses and continued quad dominant type of therapy have led to overloading the knees and has taken running out of my life. I have never been much on strengthening exercises and now I know how important that is. Hopefully, not a little too late. Also, given the fact that I have gained 10 lbs since I haven’t been running, I realized that my diet could use a makeover as well.  Not just for weight loss but also for general health. Yep, I am that runner who ate whatever I wanted and just ran. No cross-training, no strength training. Nothing! Just running.

IT WILL CATCH UP TO YOU

Changing your diet is just hard. There is so much information on the internet claiming that if you just change your diet, you can beat arthritic pain. The thing is that I don’t even know who to believe. As I mentioned, I don’t even know if that is the kind of pain I have. So many people have their special anti-inflammatory diet and all claim to do the same things. How can that be? Vegetarian, Vegan, Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean, and the list goes on. How can the lectins in beans be the inflammatory culprit when I was basically raised on pintos? I just want to eat normal whole food and be healthy. Now the cokes…and the added sugar (the common denominator that is not found in any of those online “healthy” diets) well…let’s just say that I am working on it.

And while I am on a roll here :), why am I paying for a gym membership that I don’t even use. I just kept the membership so that I could do the treadmill workouts that my PT had wanted me to do. Had to cancel that! But before I did, I thought I should talk to a trainer and get some input. When I started telling him my sad story, he started talking about what can happen with running and knees, and he used terms like quad dominance, inactivated glutes, weak hamstrings, weak core…yes, he was speaking my language. He was so hired!! I knew I had these problems, but I just didn’t know how to fix them. But, I did know where I was putting my birthday cash that I had been holding on to….thanks Mom 🙂

For the past couple of months, I have been working with Travis at The Alaska Club and things have gotten better. We have been focusing on glutes, hamstrings and core; all those stabilizer muscles with a little upper body thrown in as well.  And now, I can actually run without pain. I can even walk down my driveway without pain…its a bit steep even though it doesn’t look it….

I don’t know if I will get back to marathon training, I sure hope so, but just to run at all is so exciting for me. It is just what I love to do. If you have followed my IG stories, you may have noticed that I am a bit over the top and a little too excited when talking about being able to run a mile ha ha. It really does mean that much to me though.

And my running views are just simply amazing!

I am learning a lot, putting into practice what I already knew, and gaining some strength along with perspective. Slowly, I am finding my way back to being a runner,  just a stronger and healthier version.

 

I am a work in progress.

I had to defer the Chicago marathon this year.

That was a really sad day…..

 

Dare I claim my guaranteed entry for next year? It is now open…..