Submitted by Rush 5/1/2023 13:44:18 0 Comments
At 56, I've had my share of injuries. The last 8 months have been frustrating. I severely dislocated a toe last August (a non-running accident) that required surgery. A total of 8 weeks of zero activity. Finally I was able to walk in normal shoes, then walk hills, then a gradual return to running. I had just had what felt like a really solid week when, in back in February, I caught COVID. Man, has this been a long recovery. I'm still occasionally having days of intense fatigue but the time between those days is growing longer. But as before, I'm back to feeling like I'm putting together a solid week when an old knee injury (don't ever play high school football, folks) has been nagging me. Last Saturday I did 8 miles on the AT. The day was glorious. The trail was full of through hikers and wild flowers. My return leg was 11 minutes faster than my out leg and it felt like days from 2015. But, the next day, I had pain in my right arch, so the rest of the next week was spent running flat. I got a Theragun at Christmas and I've been applying that to my plantar tendons and it seems to be helping.
I really don't want this blog to be a catalog of injuries of an aging runner, but that's where I've been of late.
Submitted by Rush 3/9/2023 0:32:45 0 Comments
I caught COVID the second week of February. I had begun to think I might make it through the pandemic without getting sick. I attended a local indoor event with about 100 people and I didn't wear a mask. I was inside about 90 minutes. Turns out a number of people were infected that night.
I felt terrible for 3 days or so and then spent several days with the main symptom being crushing fatigue. That, too, slowly mitigated. I started running again on February 28th, very short and very low intensity. I'm running about every other day with a few short, steep hikes thrown in.
My advice - if you're going to be indoors with a group of people for more than 15 minutes, wear a mask.
Submitted by Rush 11/6/2022 0 Comments
The injury-surgery-recovery saga continues. I had my final post-op eval this week. The x-ray looked good and the doc cleared me to resume all normal activities.
Thursday I walked and then ran 2 flat miles. Same on Friday. My right sesamoids had started barking from lots of miles in concrete in old, worn out road shoes. Saturday we spent the day working on our house. This morning I went up Bowlens Creek for 59 minutes to a spot I know well. I hiked and ran the flats on the up, then ran back down. My skeletal frame is really feeling the layoff, but today I was really able to trust the foot to take the weight and it's doing very well.
I'm grateful to be in the woods. Grateful to be able to move my body. Grateful for a job and insurance coverage that allowed me to have surgery to fix what needed fixing.
Submitted by Rush. 10/10/2022 0 Comments
3 weeks after dislocating my toe, I had surgery on 8/29. I spent 4 weeks on crutches, then another week in a post-op shoe. On 10/6 I went back into street shoes. My ankle was wobbly, my knee felt weak and loose, and my hip flexors feel destroyed. I'm walking. I'll never take walking for granted again. I feel like I'm weeks away from even gentle, level running. I literally cannot imagine trail running right now. But the leaves are turning and the mornings are gloriously cool and I'm grateful to walk around my small town.
Submitted by 9/9/2022 0 Comments
Just when I was really starting to recover from the hip-related PT, building a foundation for heading into fall, a freak accident dislocated the 5th toe on my left foot. 2 attempts at closed reductions failed ( and hurt like hell) and I had surgery on 8/29. After cutting a tendon to realign the joint, the doc initially inserted a K-pin lengthwise through the toe bones to keep them aligned. But, the resulting circulation was so poor that she decided to remove the pin while still in the OR. I was sent home with no pin but a ZERO activity order until I'm re-evaluated on 9/15.
This is the longest I've gone with no running (no walking, no anything but crutches) in a long time. I can feel the morning air starting to cool up here in the NC mountains and the first hints of the leaves thinking about turning. I'm sad about not being out there in it enjoying the season in the way that is so meaningful to me: being alone deep in the mountains.
run the mile you're in
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