24 posts tagged “injuries”
Bad news #1 is that as of December 2008 my right hamstring was still bothering me. For a quick recap... In December 2007 my doctor diagnosed a "grade 1" hamstring strain. Six weeks of PT I still had pain but was cleared to run. It never quite healed. My goal to run the Wild West 100K in August 2008 was nixed.
Last Sunday Amanda and I set out for my Grandma's to eat our third Thanksgiving dinner within four days. However the real turkey turned out to be me! Grandma lives about 20 miles away but we only made it one mile...
Half an hour before we left it began to snow but the temperature was still holding at 35 degrees. Heading out of the driveway I stepped on the brakes to do a slipperiness test and yep, it was slick. Turning onto the two-lane state highway I took it slow, going 10-15 mph below the 55 mph speed limit on the unplowed road.
Still too fast, apparently. Barely one mile departed on our trip on a arrow-straight stretch of road, our car (a 2003 Honda Pilot) began to fishtail. Despite my attempts to hold the car steady in hopes of riding out the oscillations, the amplitude of each swing of the rear end progressively increased.
Right, left, right, then a big 180-degree swing to the left had us going down the road backwards! Looking out my driver's side window I saw us approach the edge of the road where a 45-degree, 12-foot downward slope awaited. I called out to Amanda "Hang on, we're gonna roll!" but secretly I hoped that the car, still riding backwards, would merely drive itself diagonally across the embankment.
Strangely - but not surprisingly if you know me - I felt extremely calm during the event. In high-pressure, high-action situations for whatever reason I don't panic. I simply observe and react, as if the world has just slowed down a few ticks and my logical reasoning deploys itself at a lightning-fast subconscious level.
My warning to Amanda was accurate. The left rear dug into the weeds and soft ground and the car began its roll onto the driver's side. Amanda screamed just like she did on our first roller coaster ride together years ago!
My eyes focused out the windshield I watched the sky roll around and felt my head clunk the B-pillar but instantly I knew it was a harmless knock.
The impact was harder when the roof hit the ground but I felt nothing, not even the seatbelt. Later I would realize that the minor bruises on my knees probably happened at this point. I noticed that the windshield shattered but remained intact and in place.
The roll onto the passenger's side was quite mild, and then slowly but somewhat jarringly the car plunked back onto its wheels and the accident was over.
I felt 100% OK and after double-checking for a split-second I concluded that I was unhurt. I looked over to Amanda and asked if she was OK and she muttered "Yeah, I guess" but didn't seem convinced. Then she says "I have blood coming from somewhere!" and I see blood on her right hand. Quickly I check her head and face but seeing nothing, I figure it was a cut finger from the shattered passenger's window. Luckily that's all it was.
Amanda had been on the phone with her mom at the time of the accident so I asked her if she were still connected. Amanda retrieves her phone from the floor and says "No, it hung up" so I urged her "You better call them back!" Even though we called back within a minute or two, her parents later would say that it felt like our callback took days!
For good reason - here's what Amanda's mom heard on her end of the phone:
Amanda: "Hold on a sec, there's a problem on the road..."
[pause]
Andrew: [in the background] "Hang on, we're gonna roll!"
Amanda: [SCREAM]
[call disconnects]
Thanks to our networked world Amanda's mom probably suffered the worst injury despite being over 100 miles away!
I shut off the engine and we got out - amazingly our doors opened just fine. Already there were four good samaritans checking on us! Two drivers and two neighbors, including the one who's field we ended up in. I assure them we're OK and the drivers began to leave.
Then a woman comes running up to me on the verge of hysteria and doing all she can to not break down sobbing. She explains that she had just passed us in the oncoming direction and then looked into the rearview mirror to see our car flipping over. She was certain we were dead - I guess the roll looked worse than it felt!
Although Amanda did suffer some injuries - mainly a mild concussion, but also some rather impressive bruises from the seatbelt and various other locations. My worst injury was a moderately strained rib cage but Amanda got the brunt of the impact - just the the photos below and it's easy to see why.
The homeowners were super nice and let us sit in their house while we waited and they even gave Amanda a bandaid for her finger. After being put on hold several times by Allstate's roadside assistance (yeah, thanks for the timely help... not) they finally sent out a tow truck. The guy was able to drive my car right up to the wrecker! I was surprised that it could drive at all, especially after getting a closer look at the windshield and seeing the extent of the damage.
My parents, brother and his wife arrived - they, too, were on their way to Grandma's and diverted to us when I called about the crash. They drove Amanda back home while I waited... and waited...
The police took forever to arrive. Not initially - within five minutes of the accident the Ionia county sherriff showed up but we were literally 100 yards short of the county line. Not that he wouldn't have helped if we were hurt, but there was a multiple-injury accident that he was heading to so he called the Lowell city police for us.
About 10-15 minutes later a Lowell officer arrives and guess what, we're just outside the city limits. He explains that he gladly would've handled our accident except that the Michigan state police called him off! Yep, the state troopers had the jurisdiction on this state highway and rather than elect to delegate to Lowell, they insisted on taking our case. The Lowell officer drove off and we waited for the Michigan trooper who was "on his way".
45 minutes later he finally arrives! The tow truck driver had to wait, too - everything was ready to go except for the police. I know it was a busy time with several accidents due to the bizarre weather but Lowell was more than willing to help. I just don't get it.
Anyway the cop sends me off with a "too fast for conditions" ticket because, he explained: "Obviously you lost control, so you were going too fast." Thank you Captain Obvious!
Actually it wasn't nearly so obvious. I was frustrated for the rest of the day trying to figure out exactly why we crashed - after all, I was well below the speed limit, the road was straight, and I wasn't doing anything stupid. After much rumination I think I now have it figured out, but I'll save that for Part 2 of this recap.
As your reward for reading all the way to the end, here are photos I took of the car today as it sits in the wrecker yard waiting for the insurance adjuster to declare its fate.
It was last October that I injured my right hamstring. I took some time off from running but on Thanksgiving day 2007 I went for a run only to return with my leg more sore than ever, so I went to the doctor.
Both the primary doctor and the physical trainer diagnosed the injury as a "grade 1" hamstring strain: there was no acute injury, no bruising and no palpable tears.
After a month of therapy the PT was satisfied that I was almost fully healed and he cleared me to go running again, albeit it slowly. I still couldn't run a moderate pace without pain but the PT was certain that my hamstring was just sore, not injured. During treatment he was amazed at the strength in my leg, so I figured all was good.
It hasn't turned out that way. Although I've managed to log 255 miles so far this year that's a far cry from the 1018 that I ran in 2007, the latter which includes zero miles in December. In fact I was averaging about 100 miles per month in 2007 before the injury compared to 23/mo this year.
In part that's due to being cautious with the leg - I took up inline skating and added more cycling to reduce the impact stress on the hamstring. But it's also due to the hamstring itself. While I can run without pain for up to 3 miles, my hammy still gets sore during a run if I go faster than a 9:00 pace or if I exceed 3 miles; plus, it gets mildly sore after a run of any distance.
It's certainly better than a year ago, but shouldn't it be healed by now? My doctor seems to agree. When I saw him last week we were talking about his own injury - last year he ruptured his achilles tendon playing basketball almost the same time that my hamstring acted up. He's back to playing basketball although less than 100%, but when we considered that my "grade 1" strain is still limiting me after the same recovery time, it's a bit concerning.
So now I have an appointment with an orthopaedist in a couple weeks to see if there's something else going on, and I've pretty much shut down my running again. Yeah, I'm a bit bummed but the worst part is that with winter here, inline skating and cycling are no longer options. I'm finally starting to notice a significant decrease in endurance when I go hiking with the dogs, and my resting heart rate is now 64 instead of the "in shape" 54 and the 57 that it's been this summer.
All I can think to do is try swimming. Although it's indoors, it sure beats sitting on a stationary bike. Since the local health club offers monthly rates that are reasonable, I'm planning to start swimming in December and if I need any rehab from the ortho, the club will have equipment there I could use, too.
One problem: I'm not a swimmer! Sure I *can* swim but I've never sustained a continuous swim for longer than a couple minutes. Treading water I can do of course, but boy is it hard to breathe doing a front crawl! I can never get the timing right. Another issue is goggles - I have 20/400 vision without contacts and I'd like to wear them in the pool if possible, but past experience with goggles has been that they leak.
Are there any swimmers out there who can give me some advice?
With luck I'll maintain my fitness in the water and by the time spring rolls around, I can get out onto the roads and trails again!
A quick update of what I've been up to, set to a "wishful" theme...
1) The simulation baseball league that I run had its annual draft last Friday evening via telecon. Each of the eight members lives in a different state/province (except for two of us in Michigan) - MI, OH, IN, MA, NC, AZ, and ONT. How did we all meet? Well, not all of us have met, except by phone and email! I wish that someday we could all get together in person for the draft like we did in 1993.
2) The next morning I ran my first running event of the year, the Irish Jig 5K. While I wish my hamstring were healed enough that I could've actually raced instead of doing a "training run", I still had a lot of fun by carrying a camera and taking photos during the race.
3) I wish my hamstring would heal more quickly. Nevertheless, it's getting better; in fact it was feeling surprisingly good after the Irish Jig. I ran 5.6 miles Tuesday and 3.2 yesterday and so far, so good.
4) During PT for my hamstring while the trainer was away waiting for the heat pack to warm up my leg, I would alleviate my boredom by grabbing his copy of Netter's Orthopaedic Atlas and flipping through the pages. I was hooked! I'd make great use of a book like that to help understand anatomy, or better yet, I wish I had the newer Thieme Atlas.
5) As long as I'm window shopping, I wish my feet could have a pair of Simple Shoes.
When I finished physical therapy over a week ago, my trainer and I concluded that the hamstring was about 90% healed. Good news indeed, but in the days since it seems like things have regressed slightly, say 85%. That's not much, but any negative trend is cause for concern.
Then it hit me - I've been doing my running on trails in deep snow. Hilly, off-road terrain is difficult enough without slogging through a foot of snow in chilly weather, and it may have been too much stress for my hamstring given its condition.
Yeah, I know... DUH. I should've known better but live and learn.
Today I hit the treadmill indoors where the the air is warm and the surface is flat and unobstructed. What a difference! The first mile was conservative at a 10:00 pace, then I upped it to 9:45 for mile 2, then 9:30 for mile 3. No problems! I decided to cautiously test my hamstring and began ramping up the speed in small increments during mile 4, promising myself I would go back down if I felt ANY hint of tightness.
By the time I hit 4 miles I was running an 8:00 pace and the hamstring felt great! Staying conservative I made that my limit and held the 8:00 for half a mile before running the last 0.5 at a 10:00 pace, resulting in 5.0 miles in 47:24. Very encouraging!
Best of all, no stiffness or soreness at all in the three hours since the run. Given these results, I might have to resign myself to doing lots of 'mill work until the weather warms up. The extended forecast shows no temperatures over 30 degrees for the next week and a half, so I might be waiting a while. If that means my hamstring will be 100% by springtime, then it's worth it.
The other encouraging news is that my HR was 140-150 at the 9:30-10:00 paces, and stayed at 160 for most of the faster paces until the half mile at 8:00, when I topped out at 170. That's pretty much where I was before the injury, so aerobically I haven't lost much fitness at all. My resting HR earlier today was 56, down from the 60 it reached during the nadir of my non-running but not quite the 54 that was normal before the injury.
Boy did it feel awesome to move my legs at a 8:00 pace! I can't wait to run a 6:00 pace again, even if it's only for a minute.
I didn't have to wait long to resume running! On January 2nd the PT cleared me to resume running, although he stressed taking it easy. I had hoped to run that day but he worked my leg over so much during training - squats, lunges onto an unstable pad, curls, and lots of stretching - that I was too sore to risk running on the 2nd.
So I ran on the 3rd! It was cold and icy so I wore my screw shoes and departed from the Critter Cottage for a slow, 2.8 mile run. The shoes worked great... my legs, not so much. Happily my hamstring felt fine, but the rest of my body wasn't used to running after a month+ layoff. I've only gained five pounds but I felt heavy. Still, it also felt natural and it seemed like I could've run more than twice that distance if I wanted to push things.
After a few days off to ensure a good recovery for my legs, I ran again on the 7th. I woke up to see the thermometer reading 55 degrees and it was still dark out! I went for a leisurely 2-miler in the misting rain and so far, so good for the hamstring.
Not wanting to miss the warm weather I went for another run the next day. The forecast called for falling temps throughout the night so I laced it up after dark that evening just before the cold weather moved in. It was 55 degrees again, and I figured my leg would prefer warm temps and besides, I'd given it 36 hours of rest.
Haven begged hard enough that I took her with me. We got all decked out in our night lights and set out to conquer the neighborhood. We returned triumphantly after 3 miles of running, having enjoyed the steady rain and peaceful darkness. I did panic a little bit when my hamstring felt tight at 2.5 miles but it relaxed again within a couple minutes and it hasn't shown signs of problems. However to be cautious I haven't run since then, and I'll be going to PT today for a check up.
Hopefully sometime this weekend I can add to my 2008 mileage. Speaking of which, if you're looking for a running log spreadsheet to track your miles this year, look no further.
My leg is getting better - I went to physical therapy yesterday and let me just say that if you've never had a trainer massage your hamstring by using their elbow with his full weight behind it, then you've never had a deep tissue massage. Amazingly I was still able to walk after the session!
A week ago I wrote on Vox about how children thinking of charities is my favorite part of the holidays. A recent event where a boy lost his life trying to save his dog inspired me to pen an article on Itchmo about how much kids can love their pets. I'm sure many of you can relate or even have similar stories - hopefully you will share them. Several Itchmo readers have already contributed some great comments. (While you're there you may want to see what else I've written at Itchmo this year.)
To avoid ending on a such a pensive note, I'll mention my favorite fictional boy-and-his-dog: Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Sometime in the next few days Amanda and I will watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and one of funniest scenes in the movie is the Peanuts Dance. I'll even turn on some tunes to help you get into the mood:
Amanda says that I dance like the boy in the orange shirt...
I haven't written much lately for a couple reasons: 1) Amanda and I have been busy starting up our new business, and 2) I haven't been running.
The latter is significant because much of my blog is about my running and without that, what do I write about? OK there are plenty of other topics, but also important is that not running can be depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I haven't been able to run - I missed all the good 50-degree weather in early November and now with snow and ice on the ground I can't even ride my bike. I've used the stationary bike at home a few times but that's even worse than a treadmill. I did get in a great long ride in mid November - 35 miles in 2.5 hours, and it was fun the whole way. Since I don't have clips on my pedals it's hard for me to engage my hamstrings, which is good for my injured right one.
I don't think I ever recovered from the Harvest Hustle and Doggie Dash, running 5K PRs on back-to-back weekends. Or rather, I didn't allow myself to recover. I was feeling so strong after those races that my next couple workouts were faster than usual and after the second one my hamstring tightened up afterwards. I took a couple days off and then ran a couple more 5-milers, the last one on Halloween, but it was still feeling tight, so I figured I'd be conservative and rest it for an entire week.
After the week off I ran a couple short runs under 3 miles with a day rest in between, and my hamstring felt no better than before! Ugh. So I took TWELVE days off with no running, although I did get some cycling in. I ran on Thanksgiving day for 3 miles with Haven and my hamstring felt great! No problems. I took the next day off just to be sure, then ran 3 miles with Beacon and as soon as I got home and stopped running, my hamstring was more sore than it's ever been and I was even limping for the rest of the day! What the heck?
Partly I can "blame" Beacon. We ran at what felt like a 9:00 pace but when I mapped it out afterwards I was alarmed to learn that he had pulled me to a 7:30 pace! Still, it felt easy and I was paying close attention to my legs and never felt a twinge of anything until after the run. Now I'm in the middle of another forced layoff and just hoping that my hamstring will actually heal.
Hopefully it is healing. I haven't felt any tightness in about a week and I'm actually considering running on it - very slowly and very briefly - sometime soon. Yet there's some trepidation because the last two times that my leg felt healed it turned out not to be, so maybe I should wait another whole week just to be certain?
I know that healing takes time, but what's so odd to me is that my initial injury never felt anywhere close to serious. Just a little stiffness in the hamstring; in fact I've had that before after some speed workouts. It's never hurt to the point that I couldn't run without pain but I wanted to catch it early before injuries started cascading. This has never felt like an injury that would've required more than a couple days to heal, yet here I am.
The good thing is that Amanda and I have been busy with 2 Feet 4 Paws so most days it's easy to forget that I'm not running that day, but I can feel the effects. It's harder to wake up when I'm "not a runner" and food doesn't taste as good when I haven't been exercising. Time heals all wounds and eventually it will heal this one, but boy is it tough having to wait!
Woo hoo! I'm done with PT! I had my last appointment today and they declared me well enough recovered that I don't have to go back. Actually it was rather fun to go there but it's also expensive at $25 a visit.
My abs/rib injury has been healing nicely. While not 100%, I'm able to do most anything I want without problems. My shoulder is actually progressing more slowly but still making progress. It's not quite strong enough to do "step-ups" (in a push-up stance, walk my hands up and down a stairstep) - I can do it, but it causes pain in the front of my shoulder. I'll have to keep working on that.
The coolest part of PT today was when the PT handed me a baseball and a mitt and said "Let's go see how well you can throw!" Yes! He grabbed a catchers' mitt and we went out into a wide hallway at the fitness club to play catch. Bringing my elbow back and up caused a slight click in my shoulder, but the actual throw posed no trouble. That's good, because softball practice will start next week!
I haven't written about rehab in a while, but it's been going well. My shoulder is getting much stronger and doesn't click nearly as bad as it used to. I can actually put my hands in my back pockets and then take them out again without a loud popping noise in my right shoulder! My exercises now consist of higher strength stuff - my favorite (and most difficult) is the "step-up" where I get into a push-up position, arms extended, and then walk my hands up one stairstep and back down again, over and over. Walk up, walk down. Very tiring but my shoulder is quite stable while I do it, so that's a good sign.
I'm also rehabbing my rib cage injury. The PT discovered that it's not costocondritis (rib cartilage inflammation) as my primary care doc thought; rather, it's a strained abdominal muscle. I did some stretches for a week and it felt noticeably better very quickly. Now for this week I have to do planks! Those are also tiring, but also quite fun, especially the ones you do on your side, kinda like a sideways push-up.
A cool tidbit - one of the patients that I've seen frequently at rehab is a basketball player for Western Michigan University (I'm not sure if he's current, or recently graduated). He's only about 6'0" (short for basketball) but this guy is RIPPED. Watching him do some exercises, he's as strong as he looks - I would describe his movements as "explosive". He tore his calf muscle a while ago and he's getting it back to full strength. The way he was exercising, I'd say his injured calf is stronger than my healthy one! He's a pretty nice guy, too.
