Uncertain Ground

Three and a half weeks until the Boston Marathon, I stepped out of the physical therapy room and poked my head into the window at the front desk where my therapist sat at the computer. I asked about what I was okay to do during the weekend and we discussed my running and the pain behind my knee at the attachment point of my hamstring.

"I think you can do it, but you have to be very cautious." She was talking about Boston. Today I ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill in the PT room with her checking in on me every so often.

My hamstring felt a little sore from a couple short attempts at running. On the treadmill at PT, my hamstring felt pretty good and I stared at my legs in the mirror: the left one effortlessly and thoughtlessly going through the perfect motion as if not under my control; the right leg clunking to the belt, off rhythm and clumsy. I shifted my pelvis back a fraction of an inch, my footfall quieted but only for a few seconds. I tightened my abs, I rolled my pelvis forward, I put a little more bounce in my step, I tried to force relaxation. Still my foot fell heavy and awkward on the belt. I stared out the window at the trees and tried to let it go.

Earlier in the week, my therapist allowed me to stride out more than I had been. Until Tuesday I was allowed only a painfully slow jog, which is awkward in itself. Talk about a heavy step. To appease my search for my natural stride, she let me open it up a little and stride out...for 7 minutes. My right leg slick with massage lotion glistened in the mirror, just about as muscular as the left. I was relieved to see I still had muscles. After getting to run, apparently I was slightly euphoric because she put me up on the table and I was immediately so distracted by a poster of a polar bear on the ceiling that I was unable to follow instructions. I rapidly turned into a two year old and for the next 5 minutes proceeded to entertain the therapist's aide, another patient, and myself while frustrating the therapist. She finally got me under control and made a comment about runner's high. Hmm. Maybe. It was pretty ridiculous.

After yesterday's mile, my hamstring was sore but in a vague/general way. Up I went onto the treadmill and warmed up with a walk up the 'mill's max incline. I started my 1 mile jog and tried to find my pace and stride. Nothing felt right. I tried every adjustment I could to get my right foot to quiet down. I watched my left leg in awe.

"You're running loudly!" The therapist called from the other side of the room while she did deep tissue work on another patient.

"I know, I'm working on it."

"I don't know if that's how you run or if I'm trying to change your stride, I don't know."

I've always been a heavy runner, which is odd given my size. I want to say before this injury I was doing better and had adopted a softer landing, but now I'm right back to running like an elephant. No joke. If you heard me run but didn't see me, you'd think I weighed 200 lbs.

After a mile I took it down to a walk. The therapist came over to see how I was doing. We talked about what hurt and what didn't and what on earth was going on with my leg. She said I could run another half mile, which caused me to accidentally smile with glee which I'm pretty sure she caught. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be more objective about this being as I'm the one who has to decide if the pain is something that should cause me to stop or keep going.

When I was done, I hopped up onto the table so she could check out what was bothering me. While on the treadmill she had brought a tiny skeleton over and had me point to where it hurt. I stuck my finger on the tiny medial epicondyle of the femur, right behind the knee on the inside. I laid on the table on my stomach while she dug her fingers around along my tendon and into the insertion point of my hamstring. It felt like glass digging into my knee. I closed my eyes, clutched the pillow and focused on exhaling. She marked an X on the back of my knee and left me to the assistant for ultrasound.

As he circled the wand around the tender spot, pain started to shoot towards the front of my knee and it took a second for me to realize it was just that the pain behind my knee was so bad that I was feeling it everywhere. I let the assistant know it hurt and he let up.

We went through more exercises where it became embarrassingly obvious that I have horrible flexibility in my hips but great flexibility in my hamstrings. Grrr...hips. Which of course convinced her to do the death stretch on me. I hate the death stretch. That's probably not what it's called...it's probably called the hip flexor stretch or something but that doesn't do it justice. I lay on my back at the end of the table with one leg pulled to my chest and the other hanging off the table. Then she braces my foot against her hip so I can't straighten my leg and pushes down on my other leg. After awhile of that, when I think it can't get any worse, she does some weird contortion thing around the leg that's hanging off the table and the stretch gets twice as deep. Since it was miserable to begin with and the discomfort factor of stretching is exponentially proportional to the tightness of any given muscle, ligament or fascia...I was about 6 times more uncomfortable than before.

"Oh my god that's just not natural" I muttered during one of my exhales. I was trying to find my happy place and let her stretch me but the polar bear was too far away and the macaw was not helping as it pointed it's claw at me and said "Are you remembering to breathe?"

"How so?" she asked, and I knew if she was wondering if she was hurting me or not. I was too. It wasn't painful but my god it was miserable.

"I don't know it's just...ahhh, hips!" I looked back up at the macaw on the ceiling. Jelly fish, a snowy peak next to a lake. I closed my eyes. Breathe out. Breathe out. Oh my god how long can this possibly last? I consider myself pretty tough. I have a knack for enduring discomfort. But one thing I have never figured out how to handle is the stretching of my hip flexors. Miserable sons of guns.

She finally let up and had me switch legs. As I brought my tortured left leg up and released my right, it felt like I was twisting pipes against rusted metal.

"Uuunghhgh!" I let out, eyes closed.

"What? Oh please..." She leaned into my right leg and I looked back up at the macaw. I craned my neck to find the polar bear, stretched out on his back on the ice, looking content and happy. He was too far away. Above me were words and pictures, stating no shoes on the table. A cat had its lips pursed and cheeks puffed out. "Don't forget to breathe!" I wondered why I should even have to be conscious for this.

My favorite time of the day...ice and electric stim. That means it's over, they're done torturing me. It was just me and the macaw for 15 minutes.

Boston is 3 and a half weeks away. My therapist says it's possible. I just got my wave and corral assignment. Wave 2, corral 8. Yeesh. At least I will spend the first two miles walking in a huge crowd of people, so it's not like I'll be running the whole 26.2 miles. I looked on the Boston Marathon Facebook page, read a couple posts about people being excited and quickly got out of there. It's hard not knowing. It's been hard not knowing whether to accept that I can't do it this year or to be persistent and make sure that I do. It's just a waiting game and seeing day by day how my leg feels. I get on the bike, swim, and just got a jump rope. I roll my leg muscles on the foam roller, ice and tape my tendon. Maybe it's teaching me to live in the moment, since the future is too unsure at this point. Maybe that's a good thing.