While I wish my doctor's trip was as funny as the scene in Funny People, it was not. There was, however, a particularly freckled ginger in the doctor's office who was pretty hot. And I say that because, as most people know, I have thing for gingers and also pregnant women. Sick.
The ortho was pretty surprised when I told him I'd been swimming more now than I normally swim, and able to kick/flip, etc. The constant pain is down to a manageable level, and I'm almost able to completely straighten my leg, and the bending is coming along. At this point, I'm good to go for surgery and can get it done whenever is convenient for me. Since he does it on Mondays and Fridays, I'll probably have to wait until after the RM Invitational because of Labor Day. That leaves me with almost a month still.
So in the meantime I'm going to continue to train, and probably up the volume and intensity for a little while. Can't hurt myself any worse, I figure, at least not in the pool or a fixed machine like a spin bike.
The surgery seems pretty quick, outpatient procedure, they don't even use general anaesthetics, just a twilight version so I'm not even totally out. Takes about an hour. They'll scope it, take out the bad ACL and insert a new ligament from a donor (hopefully it comes from a super slutty lesbian nympho criminal). For a few days I'll likely have to stay home (in NJ) and chill out, but I'm confident I'll be able to be at Philly Distance Run to cheer on the multitude of friends I have running.
Then comes the real recovery. The doc feels that within a month I should be back in the pool, within 6 weeks riding a bike and by 2 months running again. That puts me in mid November, which will represent 4 months of not running. Not that I would try and shortcut my recovery, but given how quickly I got back in the pool and to riding a bike after the initial injury, I can't imagine it will actually be that long. I'm going to say I'll be back in the pool within 2 and on the bike during that 3rd week.
He then told me about a girl who goes to Monmouth University and plays field hockey, tore her ACL in the spring. He did the surgery on May 9 and cleared her just last week to play again for her senior season. I wondered if it was the ginger that was sitting in the waiting room, as she was wearing a Monmouth shirt and looked like she would have played field hockey.
Anyway, he said that she just rehabbed like an animal, spending oodles of time in the training room and just forcing herself to get better and stronger. I can do that. New goal: 100% by December 14, which will be 3 months and would enable me to run Celtic Solstice that next week.
4 comments:
Bri, that would be pretty sweet if you were able to be back for CS, especially if you could reclaim your title. I, of course, would have a modest goal of maybe 7 minute pace.
The RM Memorial appears to be quite significant as it will be two days before my current ACL is laid to rest. And on the third day it shall rise again. Sound familiar? It should.
It's going to be an actual race, so I hope there's lots of surging and sprinting. Now that I'm gone, the group has resorted to anarchy. There are major splits at Fed Hill now it seems. I miss it.
I like that race, and it has the best shirts, if that's reason enough. Regaining my "title" isn't exactly what I had in mind, but you know I don't like losing.
I think maybe you should ride along on Mondays on a bike (when your knee allows) maybe with a whip in your hand. That'll keep them all in line.
Elf, use your super sleuth abilities to find me a good low key 5k a week or two out from the RM memorial. Oh sweet 5k suck-age to ensue.
Jake are you trying to run a 5k before RM invite? That would put you at like next week. There's one you could win up in Hunt Valley, I'll send you the info.
It's the same weekend as Annapolis 10 miler.
Are you planning on doing the RM 5k?
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