Follow me as I recover from a debilitating running injury that left me sidelined for over a year. I'll sporadically chronicle my rehabilitation from an SI joint injury with entertaining asides and music videos.
After walking all over New York, pushing the envelope on my running schedule and swimming routines, my body pushed back.
Enough! said my hip. Give it a rest! said my shoulder.
My rib heads were popping out and my SI joint was burning.
So I decided to lay off today, and went to see my chiropractor and massage therapist.
The visit was long overdue.
John, my chiropractor, did what he could for my rib heads, adjusting me, applying moist heat and using the drop table to loosen me up.
Then he sent me into Tony for a 15-minute massage before taping up my shoulder and hip with Kinesio tape.
Something new. Kinesio taping has been promoted strongly by Japanese chiropractor Kenzo Kase. The book John lent me came with a huge disclaimer that he is not offering medical advice.
Kinesio taping is widely used by orphopedists, chiropractors, sports trainers and others as a way to treat inflammation.
Unlike traditional athletic tape, which compresses the muscles and restricts movement, Kinesio taping allows for free range of motion without over-extension, and widens the space between the skin and muscles to promote the flow of lymphatic fluid, according to Kase's manual.
Getting the lymphatic fluid moving supposedly helps reduce the inflammation causing all that pain in the first place.
John taped up my right back shoulder area and hip and told me to leave it on for 2-3 days to let it work. It's waterproof so I can swim and shower in it.
The pool where I swim is one of those places where triathletes gather to train, shoot the breeze, compare performance times and trade war stories.
One of those triathletes is a friend I'll call Wolf. He's about two years older than me and had a hip replacement two years ago and has recovered marvelously. I see him running every now an then at a pretty good clip on the same street run on, and he is swimming, biking and doing yoga.
Yesterday, I told him about my hip injury from the Tupelo Marathon a year and a half ago, the terrible time I had getting a proper diagnosis, and the steroid injections in my right SI joint that got me back on the road to recovery. Because of my lingering concerns about hip deterioration and thinking one day I might need hip replacement surgery, I asked him what sort of signals he was getting from his body before he needed surgery.
"I broke my leg running the New York City Marathon," he said He'd been running with a hairline fracture that broke clean through and left him laying on the pavement waiting for an ambulance.
The hospital repaired the damage with a bunch of pins, the hip got infected and after several surgeries he had the hip completely replaced.
His hip is fine, he said. Now it's his left knee.
"Sucks getting old," I told him.
We had a laugh about that but it got me thinking. What if I've been running with a hairline or stress fracture and don't even know it? I could be running merrily along when, Pow! My hip breaks, or my femur shatters and down I go. That feeling I had at mile 20 in the Tupelo race sure felt like something snapped.
Stress fractures don't show up on regular x-rays. You would need a PET scan, my chiropractor friend John said over drinks at the pub last night.
I'm sure that's not the case with me, just arthritis from age. As I told Wolf, it sucks getting old.
Which reminds me. Time to sign up for the NYC Marathon.
Due to the prudent fiscal planning of my highly paid corporate overlords, I've got to take a full week of furlough this quarter.
Translation: five days of enforced leave without pay.
To make the best of it I've scheduled my furlough days around several weekends like bacon-wrapped shrimp to make up for the fact we have no company-sanctioned holidays over the next three months.
It's a win-win.
Today is the first of those furlough days and I am spending it in full recovery mode after a week of running and swimming torqued my right hip and shoulder.
Welcome to my Wellness Day.
It started at 8 a.m. with a trip to my chiropractor, Dr. John Workman, and his massage therapist, Tony Spano. After a 15-minute massage on my shoulder and hip, John worked out the rest of my kinks. I left his office feeling light-headed and pain-free.
It's as if they broke up and released all the toxins I'd been storing in my joints and muscles.
For the rest of the day I think I will just relax, take a walk on the beach, go see a movie (127 Hours is finally playing) and maybe do some yoga later.
Because tomorrow, I'll be running eight miles and hitting the pool.
And now, for all my friends who say they only run if they're being chased, here's N.W.A.:
Is running in the fog good for you? I don't know if there is any scientific evidence one way or the other, but the last two times I've run under a "spot of weather", my performance was better than it has been in months.
On the other hand, this article suggests it's not such a good idea.
Take today for instance. I had another amazing run, and achieved another milestone: Ran a total of 7 miles -- over the Melbourne Causeway and back -- in 1:12:34, not a great pace compared to what I used to run but respectable for someone recovering from hip injuries. Still, sustaining that kind of pace for seven miles? Pretty cool.
Best part, I ran the first four miles at a 9:33 pace! The last three miles I sort of took it easy, jogged, stretched, ran backwards (it didn't reduce my time, sadly). Call it a recovery run.
Now, 12 hours later, I can say I feel no better or worse for the wear, and I've taken no pain killers today. I think it helped that I rested Friday and got a massage and chiropractic adjustment.
Just hope this doesn't boomerang on me and I wake up unable to get out of bed in the morning.
Anyway, I've reached an epiphany: My hip hurts whether I run or not, so I might as well run.
Here's "Bloodbuzz, Ohio," by The National (one of the best running songs yet):
Gamblers have a term for betting the dice will come up double fours in a craps roll. Hard eight. The odds are so enormous that the payout is huge. There's a great character study of a film by the same name, directed by Paul Michael Thomas. It stars John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall and Gwyneth Paltrow as a hooker with a heart of coal.
Hard eight is what I ran Sunday evening. For me, it was the first time in more than a year that I ran eight miles without stopping, and ran it at a sustained pace of about 10 minutes. Not bad considering I laid off running for a year and am being treated for a SI Joint inflammation, which was misdiagnosed alternatively as diskitis, lower disk protrusion and rheumatoid arthritis. It's an inflamed joint, and the anti-inflammatories I'm taking have knocked it down enough that for the last four weeks I've been able to run four times a week, with at least one big run thrown in the mix just to see if I can do it. I can do it.
The first few times were tough. I'd run two miles, rest, maybe walk a bit, jog over the causeway, rest, walk a bit, and do the same on my way back. Last week I managed to run over the causeway without a break, a full 3.7 miles. I stopped for a water break, stretched and ran back over the causeway, took one more water break, and then home.
After two days off, with about 240 miles of driving to West Palm thrown in, a barbecue, some kayaking, much beer drinking and a depressing night watching the Gators get torn to shreds by Bama, I was back home Sunday, doing the laundry and decided to lace up -- still running in my year-old-plus Brooks Adrenalines. I can safely say, without any doubt, after tonight that the spring is shot, and I need new shoes.
For some reason, I felt pretty pumped. Bouncing off the balls of my feet, shoulders back and cruising along pretty nicely, until some kid motored by me like I was standing still. I decided to push up my game. I leaned into the causeway incline and kicked it at the top, then settled into a nice amble on the decline. By the time I got to Douglas Park, I thought, why not go all the way to the four-mile point before turning around. Why not go the whole eight mile?
My second attack of the causeway was better than the first. I drove up that hill as hard as I could, and when I got to the top I pumped it before easing into a nice trot down the hill.
The rest of the run was mostly flat with little ups and downs, and it was getting on twilight. A nice time to be running when the weather turns cool enough here in Florida. So I just kept pushing myself, willing the piriformis to loosen up and quit acting like an old codger. I ran the last half mile or so balls out.
And I finished in under 90 minutes. Maybe even 80. I should get a watch. But that means I was running right around a steady 10 minutes for a whole eight miles without stopping, except for some water at the halfway mark.
For me that is a huge milestone on the road to recovery. I was lucky to plod through four miles in 40 minutes or longer when I started running again two months ago. Running eight miles in a little over 80 minutes is huge for me, and that is saying a lot. I mean, my best running time about three years ago was a 5k where I broke 23 minutes -- my best! I used to run seven miles in 54 minutes during workouts. My time at the half-way mark for the Space Coast Marathon was 1:52, and my pace for the entire run was 9:27, for a 4:07 finish.
It's possible that three months from now, with a couple more steroid injections, ice packs, massage therapy, yoga and chiropractics, I could be close to those old times. It's just as possible I may never hit that 9:27 pace again, but I'm not saying I can't do it, either.
Now, for something a little different, a great scene from Hard Eight, where the duelling Philips -- Baker Hall and Seymour Hoffman -- test their wills against each other over a craps table:
So, now that I'm running again, and feeling better than I have in a year, I've got to resist the temptation to fall off the wagon so to speak, and go full out on my workout regime.
That's not to say I haven't pushed the envelope with a couple of longer runs, and one really serious workout this morning where I pushed up my pace, chugged up some hills and ran as hard as I could till I felt like hurling.
That being said, I realized that there are several really good rules to follow when recovering from an injury, especially the epic SI joint inflammation that I've been dealing with.
RULE # 1: Listen to your body. Respect its limitations. You can't just go from laying on the couch for a year to putting in eight-mile runs every day. Run your best, but when the piriformis pings or the knees ache, stop and stretch, walk a bit, and ease your way back into a comfortable pace.
RULE # 2: Drink. Lots. Of. Water. The muscles like water. They need to be bathed in fluid, according to an article read in a recent issue of Running Times magazine.For two hours after a run your body is still in recovery, even as the metabolic rate slows down, according to Julia Lucas. So drink up.
RULE # 3: Feed your body. You've just had an intense workout, and you've robbed your body of lots of nutrients as a result. I like taking a multi-vitamin after a tough workout.
RULE # 4: Take it easy. The hard part is over. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Do some gardening. Read a book.
RULE # 5: Treat yourself. After my nine-miler Thursday, I had a 15-minute deep tissue massage and a chiropractic adjustment. I allowed myself a full 48 hours to derive the benefit of that massage. The New York Times just reported on a study that shows one massage session can cause amazingly beneficial biological changes. As someone who had one of the most excruciating but most beneficial massages of my life, let me say, Om.
RULE # 6: Take your meds. I don't care what other doctors may have to say about the subject, but I'm a firm believer in a doctor-supervised medical treatment as part of any recovery program -- in moderation. The meloxicam (anti-inflammatory) I take every day works on the SI inflammation, along with the massage and the regular stretching exercises. If I need to take a tramadol or muscle-relaxer to ease that piriformis ping, so be it.
RULE # 7: Stretch. Always incorporate some kind of stretching as part of your recovery. I do a combination of yoga and physical therapy positions I've learned over the years. The worst thing you can do is sit around and stiffen up.
RULE # 8: Ice it down. If it aches, alternate ice with heat to reduce the inflammation. It works.
Then he sent me into Tony for a 15-minute massage before taping up my shoulder and hip with Kinesio tape.
