A Bit of Cautious Optimism

Last Friday I went to my 2nd PT session at UCSF. In the first session, they used a suction machine to try to tear up some of the scar tissue in my right quad / IT band (sort of like reverse ART) & loosen it up. This last time, the verdict was that the tightness & scar tissue extended all the way up into my lower back and the hip flexors on the sides of my abs. (Did you know you had hip flexors there? I didn't.) So the suction machine it was.

Yeah. Good times.

I'm happy to report that in the last few days, things have been looking up. As of the weekend, I still had some niggling pain & didn't try to run. I realized Monday afternoon, though, that I was completely pain-free just walking around, so I decided to try a few slow, easy miles, just to see how it felt.

Mentally, I told myself very firmly that this was not a workout, not a training run -- just a little test to see how the leg held up after a few miles. By 1.5 I still felt good but decided to play it safe & turn around anyway since the last thing I wanted to do was push my leg too hard on my first pain-free day & make things worse again. Around 2ish I could feel just a tiny twinge, not even really enough to call pain, but enough for me to know I'd made the right choice not to try to go farther. When I first got home I thought it might feel good to ice it a bit; an hour later I realized even the little twinge was gone and I'd forgotten all about the ice.

On Tuesday I was in Fairfield for work, where I normally run on the hotel treadmill because I don't know the area super-well. Initially I figured this would probably work out for the best, since a treadmill meant I could stop whenever I wanted rather than hoping that I'd turned around soon enough. However, this is the first time I've been here where it was light and warm and beautiful into the evening, and with so many empty, quiet, bucolic sidewalks beckoning, I couldn't resist heading outside for a little jog.

If it hadn't been for the fact that I was being cautious about my leg, I could've run forever. Honestly, sometimes I get so. damn. SICK of running my same traffic-light ridden, pedestrian-congested routes around the city. What would I give to have lovely paths like these right outside my door? There are times--not very often, but occasionally--when I really miss the suburbs.

I pushed it to five miles this time & and happily my leg held up, again leaving me with just a little twinge in the hour or so after the run that soon completely disappeared. I even kept up a good pace without much effort, which was reassuring after two single-digit weeks in a row. I'm still wary of doing too much too soon, but currently my loose plan is to take Wednesday off & do some longer single-digit runs on Thursday & Friday, take Saturday off, & if all goes well & my leg is feeling good, try for the 12 miler on my schedule on Sunday. If that goes well, then Houston, I think we may have a marathon attempt on our hands after all.