Hello Friends,
Two miles into my 12 mile Sunday morning training run I pulled up lame with a sore left calf muscle. I had felt some discomfort and stop to rub it out then continued to run. After another 1/2 mile I could no longer push off the ground with my left leg without feeling great pain in my lower calf. I was barely able to walk out of the park where my friend Laurie picked me up with her car and drove me back to my car. I drove home and RICEd the leg for the remainder of the day. Monday I saw Dr Moyer of Temple Sports Medicine (he fixed my broken leg 15 years ago). I have a partial tear of the gastrocnemius muscle. How much of a partial tear is the BIG question. Dr Moyer has set up a program for me to re-habilitate the leg in 12 days. That will take me to Sunday morning November 23. We all know what day that is. I am in a full lower leg walking cast boot. I start swimming tonight with no kicking and slow on pressure spinning on Wednesday night. I have to warm the leg up first for 15 minutes with a warm/hot moist towel wrap then ice for 30 minutes afterwards. At all other times I must try to keep the leg elevated and with the compression boot on. I am also wearing a full length toe to top thigh compression stocking. I ice the leg every hour for 15 minutes. Do this for the next 12 days then on the morning of November 23 I can remove the boot and try to run. I am allowed to continue running as long as I have no pain in the lower calf. If pain starts I have to stop. Dr Moyer says it all depends on how much tearing occurred before I stopped running last Sunday morning. I am going to try and make the marathon happen but I am not going to jeopardize next summers ironman. What a bummer, I was so excited about the Philadelphia Marathon. Now, I do not know what will happen. Philadelphia Marathon ???
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6 comments:
=( I am sending lots of good thoughts your way Dave... having just gone through the crazy marathon training plan... I can't imagine being so close... BUT...knowing what a super man you are... 12 days is a LONG time...
Keep us posted!!
Hang in there, Dave! I was finally able to go to the gym last night with the new sitter watching the girls. Ran 2.5 miles and feel surprisingly good today. That was the first time I ran in about a month and a half.
Hey Dave - definitely get the rest you need! It's not worth it to run this marathon if you're still feeling pain that morning! Just use your common sense as we know you will!
I'm not going to try to talk you out of it because I think you know what your body can handle. And if race day comes around and you feel that you won't hurt that muscle more, we'll support your efforts!
But even though you trained for this marathon, you are also committed to exercise and sports for life. So if you happened to train a few months and now have to set aside that training and rest because of an injury, do it! It is better to stop now and lose a couple of months than to push through an injury and lose the rest of your athletic (or running) life. (Yes, I'm being dramatic.) It's about preserving your body so that you will have years left of beating it up...rather than trying to run through an injury and never being able to run long distances again.
So - like I said earlier, just use your common sense. You definitely don't want to jeopardize the Ironman next year. If the 12 days of therapy work, that is awesome! If not, don't get down about it. There are plenty of other marathons out there just waiting for you to have healthy legs!
Think about it this way...only about 1% of people will ever run a marathon and a lot fewer for an Ironman triathlon! And you'll be one of those people! If not in November...soon!
Hey Dave - what did you decide to do about the marathon? How is the rehab going?
I am as of today walking without the boot. The leg feels good but weak. I will be at the start line on Sunday morning at 7:00 but I do not know how far I will be running. I will try a practice run on Saturday to test the leg. It all depends on how the leg feels at that moment. I will not chance further injury. With Bernadette running the 8k I will have no problem stopping and cheering her on. My son Bill's girlfriend Liz is running the half marathon. My running mentor Ed is running the marathon. Lot's of people to cheer for. My brother is coming in from Chicago, sister from NJ, stepmother from Maryland and aunt from Philadelphia, all to watch and cheer.
Chuck - So sorry to hear you got chicken pox. I hope your recovery goes well.
Hey Dave - Sounds like a wise decision! If I weren't so lazy and hated cold weather then I would have come out to cheer, too. But I like to sleep in on Sundays. Good luck to all of you and I will be cheering for you from King of Prussia!
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