Getting Back into the Groove.

A few posts ago, I talked about the5/5/5/ plan that my doctor put me on to allow my femur to fully heal. He also prescribed several weeks of physical therapy so I can work on some deficiencies that may have led to the fracture. I only use the word 'may' because unfortunately determining the exact cause that led to the injury is somewhat hard to determine and in all actuality, it was probably caused by several factors. What I've learned in PT is that I have a weak core and running really utilizes those muscle groups. There was a point in time where I used to weight train but that was prior to having kids and thinking back, I'm not sure that other than performing a few crunches here and there that I really ever worked on core muscle development. I'd say the last time I truly did core exercises was when I was in the Army and we were getting 'smoked' by our drill sergeants for doing something wrong.

This past weekend was the end of the 5/5/5 plan and I was free to start running again, well sort of. With the longest run being only about 2 miles long and at a 10 minute/mile pace, I was a long ways away from the previous distances and times I had been clocking in prior to the injury and I was even further away from being really ready to run in Columbus in now less than 8 weeks. Sunday I decided to push the distance a bit but keep the tempo right around the 9'30" tempo. Instead of 20 minutes, I'd try running for 30 minutes. The run felt great and I knew I had begun to slowly increase the tempo up a bit but I was feeling good so what could it hurt, right? So how did my leg feel? Well, unfortunately I never feel the pain during the run so it's hard to know whether I'm pushing it too far until the next day. Monday morning I woke up and felt the dull pain where the fracture occurred. It didn't hurt, I wasn't limping around but my leg didn't feel like it did the day before so I know that I pushed it too far too soon. Time to throttle the training back down again and give my leg a bit more time to heal. My PT tells me that broken bones typically take 6 to 8 weeks to heal. I'm now at 5 weeks since I last truly ran on it so I should be getting close to moving past this.

This morning I did another run. This time I went back to the last phase of the 5/5/5 plan and I ran for only 20 minutes around the 9 minute/mile pace. Again, I'll have to wait to know for sure but I'm hoping that I can push it just a bit more this weekend. Fortunately, I have a follow-up visit with my Doctor and Physical Therapist this Friday so I'll be able to get some advice on where to go from here. It's frustrating, without a doubt.

b