Easy 3 today after driving home--well, faster than it should have been, but I felt appropriately clunky and plodding even though my Garmin told me I was running faster than my aerobic TM pace that feels hard. Why is running outside against wind so much easier than running inside?! Last run before the race Saturday--I'm going to try to rest the next few days after driving 800 miles in the last five days, which totally killed my leg!
PT and athletic trainer this morning--really interesting session (this is the total miracle worker that I saw last time when I was having so many knee issues after Luke was born--she wedged me in this morning totally last-minute when my mom called her last night while I was running). They both agreed that I should follow up with imaging with the orthopedic doctor I saw last time (although I just checked and he's no longer with the practice, which I guess is a good thing since I wasn't impressed by him, but may now take longer to get in to somebody new). They also agreed that the majority of the issues I have with the right tibia are coming from the calcification in my ankle from a 20-yr-old injury. (Sidenote: what I really love about this particular PT is that she works SO hard to figure out what's causing the issues rather than just saying, oh, it's broken, quit running and wear a boot, which is all I got from the ortho). Anyway, my pelvis is tilted and rotated, my peroneal muscles & tendons are inflamed in both legs, but worse in the right, my feet are super super tight and I have basically zero flexion in my ankles and feet. So that all means that my feet aren't taking any of the compressive force when I run, and it all gets transferred to my tibia, and my glutes aren't firing because my pelvis was so rotated, and my calves and quads are working too hard. She also said that once my glutes are firing again my weight loss should really pick up, which would be exciting--I've lost 30 pounds since baby Matthew was born, but it's plateaued and I still have more I want to lose before Chicago training kicks in.
She worked quite a bit on releasing stuff today and got my pelvis about 60% of the way back to where it needs to be (during which I mashed my face into the table and used all my labor breathing exercises so I wouldn't scream like a scalded cat!! Dang that hurt!!!), but my spine is still popping every time I move the right leg. So I've got a bunch of exercises and rolling and icing to do. I'm cleared to run Saturday, but I think after that I'm going to cut way back on mileage for a month and just really try to get all this stuff cleared up, then take a month to build mileage again before I start training for Chicago, and do a lower-mileage program for Chicago than I would have done otherwise.
How's that for longest post ever?!
