Today I am officially ten days past the PRP/Synvisc procedure. So far things are looking pretty good. The first two days following the procedure was hellish because I was essentially immobile while I iced and took enough Advil to instantly destroy any normal human's liver. But I did get through a ton of episodes of Magnum P.I. on Netflix while I convalesced.
Day three I was out moving around with some light walking that included taking on some stairs in a parking garage when I went out to WorldFest 2012 (a local celebration of international culture - food, music, and educational themes). The weather was horrible and I left WorldFest soaked and with my knee aching from the walking and stairs. I've noticed the last two years that WorldFest has really started to be taken over by flea market style vendors who are selling plain junk such as Halloween costumes and cheap knock-off sunglasses. Disappointing, but I digress.
On day four I headed to the gym to ride the exercise bike. I did an hour of moderate intensity on one of the spin bikes. Day five I had planned on more of the spin bike, but family commitments killed those plans and I had to opt for some walking instead.
Finally on day eight I took the knee out for a nice 3.5 mile run. Although there were a couple of questionable twinges in the knee, and a hint of pain once or twice I was pretty pleased with the overall performance. So much so that I decided to do the Crossfit workout of the day, which included three 400 meter runs, after my initial test run. More on that in a future post.
That night as I turned in for the night, a terrible and deep ache suddenly appeared in my knee. It was painful enough that I again ingested more of the liver killing levels of Advil which, once again, seemed to do the trick.
And so it has gone, with a mild ache here or there but otherwise the knee seems stable. And so today, for the first time in a long while, I went on a long run. My pace was agonizingly slow, but I purposefully maintained that for a reason. And while I put in an hour and twenty-two minutes on the run, my distance was actually very low. The knee did ache at the end, but more Advil took that away almost immediately. Considering that it was a little more than a week ago that I had a huge gauge needle driven into my joint, I think the knee is improving.
One thing that I did realize almost immediately was how much I missed the long run. The alone time spent just moving where you have time to reflect, think, process. I've needed that for quite some time and today it felt good to have that back. As today's successful run marks the official beginning of my training for the half marathon in November, I'll hopefully have ample opportunity to get more of that reflection time in.
Oh, and one of the other things that I realized today? How quickly I had forgotten that runs longer than 5K should be prepped with a nice coating of BodyGlide. I'm going to have some painful chaffing for the next few days that will make that little negligent slip a self-correcting problem.
Day three I was out moving around with some light walking that included taking on some stairs in a parking garage when I went out to WorldFest 2012 (a local celebration of international culture - food, music, and educational themes). The weather was horrible and I left WorldFest soaked and with my knee aching from the walking and stairs. I've noticed the last two years that WorldFest has really started to be taken over by flea market style vendors who are selling plain junk such as Halloween costumes and cheap knock-off sunglasses. Disappointing, but I digress.
On day four I headed to the gym to ride the exercise bike. I did an hour of moderate intensity on one of the spin bikes. Day five I had planned on more of the spin bike, but family commitments killed those plans and I had to opt for some walking instead.
Finally on day eight I took the knee out for a nice 3.5 mile run. Although there were a couple of questionable twinges in the knee, and a hint of pain once or twice I was pretty pleased with the overall performance. So much so that I decided to do the Crossfit workout of the day, which included three 400 meter runs, after my initial test run. More on that in a future post.
That night as I turned in for the night, a terrible and deep ache suddenly appeared in my knee. It was painful enough that I again ingested more of the liver killing levels of Advil which, once again, seemed to do the trick.
And so it has gone, with a mild ache here or there but otherwise the knee seems stable. And so today, for the first time in a long while, I went on a long run. My pace was agonizingly slow, but I purposefully maintained that for a reason. And while I put in an hour and twenty-two minutes on the run, my distance was actually very low. The knee did ache at the end, but more Advil took that away almost immediately. Considering that it was a little more than a week ago that I had a huge gauge needle driven into my joint, I think the knee is improving.
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| Don't leave home (for the long run) without it. |
Oh, and one of the other things that I realized today? How quickly I had forgotten that runs longer than 5K should be prepped with a nice coating of BodyGlide. I'm going to have some painful chaffing for the next few days that will make that little negligent slip a self-correcting problem.
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