First run

So, I did it.

However, yesterday was the first time I actually jogged. I drove up to the Finger Lakes Running Company in Ithaca to find a new pair of running shoes.

"What did your physical therapist suggest?" said Lisa, the sales clerk.

"They suggested I go to you," I said.

After some checking, Lisa brought out three pairs of Asics.  White, grey and black. The grey pair in the middle were just right. As soon as I put them on, my foot felt better and I immediately went outside to jog in front of the storefront. My first jog since the surgery.

I wore them home -- after paying for them.

So, this morning, after my physical therapy and breakfast, I went outside to do something I had not done in more than 1 year and 4 months. I stretched out on the front step. It all went fine.

It was a very easy jog/walk, alternating with the telephone poles. Luckily the telephone poles on Middle Road and Greenridge Drive are spaced tightly, so I never had to jog for too long before switching back to walking. I covered a mile in about 18:16.

Everything felt fine except for a minor pain in my left ankle on the left side. This is on the opposite side of the foot from the injury, and after I thought it through it was not from the running.

On Saturday, I had pushed myself a bit more than usual in my balancing exercises on the BOSU ball. I had felt that minor ankle pain since then. Icing had made it settle down mostly, but I was still aware of it, and I was more aware of it when I jogged.

My plan now is to give the BOSU a rest until the pain goes away completely and have my second run after that.

So, we'll see.

Thanks to everyone for cheering me on during my recovery. It means a lot.

Next I'm heading to the gym to do circuit training and work on the ellipticals.

Suspension lifted

So, today I got some unexpected news from the assistant at my foot doctor's office.
It is now OK for me to try running again!

I need to go very slow and easy at first, and I need to get two new pairs of shoes, but she said my foot strength was good enough to give it a try.

Since my last post in June, I have been through all sorts of ups and downs. The flare up of my foot injury in January 2012 had made me stop running and switch to biking, and then I switched to walking instead. But the weight started to creep back on me, and the pain was not getting any better.
Finally, I reached a choice that I had been avoiding for a long-time. I needed surgery.
Surgery had been scheduled on my foot way back in 2003, but in between the time the appointment was made and the day of the surgery, the pain had gone away. So, I cancelled. This time, I knew I couldn't avoid it.

So, on Dec. 3, 2012, I walked able-bodied into the orthopedic department at Arnot Ogden Medical Center for "day surgery." A little more than 24-hours later, I was wheeled out to my car with my foot in a cast and was loaded like cargo into the back seat of my car. Amy drove me home. (Thanks hon, for that, and all the other driving and care-taking you did for me.)

What the doctor had done was to replace my bad tendon -- the posterior tibial -- with another tendon from one of my toes.  Then she cut my heel bone with a saw and repositioned it to better protect the tendon from injury. To hold the heel in place, she drilled screw straight up the middle of the heel bone.

Whenever I go through these things, I am always reminded that there is someone else out there in a worse spot than me. My roommate in the hospital was a guy who had lost half of his foot to an infection. It started from just a small cut on the underside of his big toe. First he lost the toe, then later it was found it had infected the bones of his foot.

"The frankenfoot has landed," Amy said as I hobbled into the recliner in the living room. The next month was unusual.  I took pain drugs regularly and spent most of my time in that recliner, using the laptop to stay in touch with the world. I used crutches or a walker to get around when I needed to. Later, we got me a little knee scooter to make it easier. However, I occasionally fell. Once I went head-over-broken-heel off the scooter while we shopped for a Christmas tree.

In early January, I was put into a walking cast, and I was able to get around with the help of a cane. Next came physical therapy, which at first focused on stretching and loosening up the muscles and tendons that had tightened up while I was in the cast. But by February, when they started adding strengthening exercises, I immediately noticed a difference. The pain started to go away.

We finished the formal therapy sessions in early March, and I continued the exercises at home. What I came to realize is that one of the big problems with my feet has been an overall weakness. I am flat-footed and have weak feet. These new physical therapy exercises did a lot to build up the strength. The stronger my feet became, the less pain I felt.

The lesson I realized: Running doesn't exercise your feet. At least not my feet, and not in a way that builds the strength they need.

When the doctor had me stand on my bare left foot in early March, I discovered another problem: "Balance!"

I seemed to lack the muscle strength to balance on one foot. So, I added the BOSU ball to my routine of daily exercises.

Next, I joined a gym, starting with the elliptical machines, then the circuit training, then the ab workouts. Regaining my fitness will no longer be about just running. My legs are and always have been in great shape. But my feet and ankles are weak, and the rest of my body has been neglected too long.

Throughout the rest of March, April and until today, I have spent hours most days working on getting back my strength. The time spent on my physical therapy exercises with the therapy band and ankle weights has gotten longer and longer. I will now do 200 reps of each exercise.

Then I try to spend half an hour on the BOSU ball to rebuild those balancing muscles. I can now stand on my right foot for a count of 86, and on my left foot for a count of 14. Making progress.
Trips to the gym can take as long as two hours, including travel time, warming up, exercise and cooling down.

In my mind, I had expected that I wasn't going to be able to run until after my ability to balance on my left foot was full restored. (Restored? Or found for the first time?) So, I was quite surprised when I went to the foot doctor's office this morning and was told that the balance will take time, but I could still start jogging now.

Getting new shoes -- two pair -- are the next priority. I hope to find new shoes and start using them next week.

The plan will follow the one I laid out in my earlier blogs. I'll try to go one mile, alternating telephone poles with walking and jogging.

If it starts to hurt, I stop.

But I'm back. Yay me.