Updates and Ramblings

Hi! 

Remember me? 

I’m still here, still moving forward, but sometimes life just keeps coming at you and sitting down to write cannot be part of the daily grind. Things are good. But boy it feels like this was a marathon of a week!

So speaking of running...I know, I wasn’t really speaking about running, but I might as well go there. 

If there ever was a week where I wanted to be out running, this was it. 

1) we had 2 days here that were 70+ degrees, and SO many people were out running through town

2) this is the week where people found out if they got into The Broad Street Run (BSR). So, as much as I appreciate social media, my Facebook feed was inundated with people’s posts discussing their joy in being selected for the lottery or their sadness for not being selected.  

Why do I care??? 

Well, BSR is a huge race in Philly. 

Like monstrously huge. 

And as much as it is too crowded and too big, and full of people who are fine with walking the whole 10 miles just so they can say they “ran” in the Broad Street Run, it is also an incredible event that shouldn’t be missed. 

The BSR was the first race Alex and I did when we were dating. We were both pack-a-day smokers, and weren’t exactly runners. We trained together, and finished it, both amazed that we were able to run that far. Several years later, the BSR was the first race we ran tethered together when his eyesight had gotten too bad. 

I didn’t run BSR last year because I felt like I needed a “break” from the race.

 I needed to miss it. 

I had plenty of years in the future to run it. 

Damnit!  

What the F was I thinking?!

So I regret not running it last year, hugely, and am jealous of those who will run it this year. I feel like I was stupidly taking running for granted (“oh, I’ll just run it next year, and/or the year after that...”). This is something I swore I would never do. 

Clearly my perspective has shifted since then.

 Last year I could not have imagined the position I’d be in right now, and right now I can’t imagine not wanting to run the race. 

Anyways...

I’m on week 16+ Post-op. The knee is feeling pretty great. I have a good sense of what it feels like when I went too far or did too much. And I’m being protective of it rather than trying to push to the next level, because really there’s no rushing it. Which I’ve known all along, but it took almost 4 months for my brain to accept it. 

Marty (awesome physical therapy guy) has me going longer stretches between seeing him. This means more home (gym) based sessions on my own. I’m only supposed to do it 2x in a week. Which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough. 

Bike 10 minutes

Reverse lunges

Side steps

Squats

Calf raises

Balance work

Leg press

Leg curl

Hip adduction 

Hip abduction

That’s the workout. 

I go up on the weights, deeper in the squats and lunges, etc. as I’m able to. It’s slow progress, but there is progress!

I bought myself a pull-up bar and am continuing to work on my goal of being able to do ONE measly pull-up by June 2nd (when I turn 40!). I see some progress, and I feel a bit stronger in the upper body area, but man, this is going to take a while! Right now I’m focusing on doing reverse pull-ups. Basically starting in the up position and slowly lowering myself down in a controlled manner. 

Last week I couldn’t do it slow and controlled even once. Now I can do 2 in a row...

Progress!

In other news, but not really other news because it’s still related to running and the lack of it in my life...

I’m reading a book, it’s a neuropsychology book, about the body’s response to various forms of trauma. I’m not terribly far into it but I read a rather interesting part today about how some people’s brains respond to discomfort and pain in the same way that other brains respond to pleasure and happiness. The book specifically makes an example of distance runners and how their brains respond with increased pleasure hormones only after processing the stress/pain/discomfort hormones. Without that stimulus, pushing through something physically difficult and uncomfortable, these people can be left feeling empty and without meaning, even though they have a very meaningful life. Their brain may not respond to pleasure hormones without the effects of first processing stress hormones. 

This book is not about runners specifically, but this section really resonated with me, and describes a lot of how I feel without running, how I can’t find the same happy feeling I felt as a runner. I thought that the act of running released good feeling hormones, but never thought that the good feelings actually came from the act of pushing through the suck. 

It’s why injuries are so hard to work through on a mental level. It’s why, even though everything is going great with me and my recovery, there really is something missing that all of the happy things in my wonderful life aren’t quite replacing. 

There is still a hole. 

An empty place. 

And many days I can’t imagine how I’m going to fill it, which feels ridiculous as I know I have an amazingly full life. Maybe my brain processed my hobby of distance running in a way that other activities won’t be able to mimic. 

Stay tuned I guess!