Today, I ran.
I hadn’t run a step since the surgery until today at my physical therapy appointment. I wore my running shoes that I had last worn on July 8, 2008: the last day I ran, the day I went to the orthopedist for the first time. Basically, I went fast enough on the treadmill so that I couldn’t walk anymore, which was about 5 mph. That’s half the speed of my normal maintenance runs before the surgery, but at least it was something. It was the typical first step of walk-jog: five minutes of walking, one minute of running. I did only three times instead of the usual five and I’m supposed to do no more than every other day.
The first minute didn’t feel too good and my knee felt kind of sore in the joint, especially in the microfracture area. I wouldn’t necessarily call it pain, but I could feel something. The PT said to try again and it felt better the last two times, as if it had loosened up. Certainly, it felt better than the last time I ran, which consisted of excruciating pain in the joint. I could tell my left leg was really weak and the joint/cartilage/bones were taking some of the impact that should have been absorbed by non-existent soft tissue.
The PT thinks I am good to go with the walk-jog program, gradually increasing the running and decreasing the walking until I am doing 30 minutes continuously. I feel that I’m not quite ready to proceed with that until I can get more leg strength back. Running today really emphasized the strength issue and I would be a lot more at ease if I waited another month or so until I didn’t feel like I was running on stilts. My right leg seems okay, but it’s the left one I’m concerned about.
For now, I may do a really conservative walk-jog effort once or twice a week just to get used to the feeling of running, but that’s it. I’ve been hammering the bike and hopefully that in conjunction with some strengthening exercises will bring my left leg to the point where I can really start the walk-jog program. I will go based on how I feel, even if it means not running again to salvage doing everything else without pain.
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