Ten things you probably don't know about me

While laying in bed for the last 1.5 hours thinking about my family and all the events in my life that have added up to the now, the now that has led to me lying in bed not sleeping, worrying about my bad leg and focusing on the pain that has taken over my "good" leg, I stepped outside of myself for a moment and got a little scared at what I saw. You know, I'm kind of messed up. I profess to be this strong willed, confident person but I am so far from that person I'd like you to all I think I am. And right now, I am terrified. I have been here before but at lower points in my life, points where I knew there would be something better was waiting for me down the road. I was right and the better eventually came. But what now that the better is threatened?

I considered coming out here, here being the room where my computer and something other than the bed and the quiet noise of my frantic thoughts exist, and posting some elaborate story about my life but I decided against that because that's just dumb. This is a blog. I'm purposely leaving stuff out cause that's what blogs are for. So, instead, here are 10 things about myself that you likely don't know about me. Hopefully thinking and posting some silly life moments and such here will lull me to bed.

1. I am a big fan of 80's hair bands. Def Leppard will always be my favorite and I can never get sick of that music. And don't ever challenge me to a lyric-off when it comes to 80's music. I can't remember anything from 1990 on (music or otherwise) but if you post the beat to 95% of the popular songs from the 80's, I will immediately break into ACCURATE song.

2. I have really small feet. I wear size 5 shoes. There's nothing good about this unless you like "cute" feet. I don't like cute feet so for me, it's just an annoyance as manufactuers don't make shoes to fit me.

3. I was born in Chicago, IL. I moved to Wisconsin and grew up in a tiny town of 2000 people. I moved to Minnesota when I was 19. I moved to Boston when I was I was 26.

4. My mom and step-dad are Bears fans and I can tolerate the Bears. Myself, my sister and my dad are Packers fans. The Packers are the best team ever and if you disagree with me you are wrong and will always be wrong. There isn't much on this earth that I detest more than the Minnesota Vikings. My husband is a Pats fan. I cheer for the Pats unless they are playing the Packers or need to lose in order to advance the Packers in some way shape or form.

5. I don't like to be asked questions about Brett Favre so don't ask me them. You probably already knew that but it's still worth pointing out. And yes, I did name my tri bike after him. Don't ask me about that either.

6. I was a cheerleader in high school. I am not proud of this.

7. I'm really sarcastic so if I ever say something that's questionably rude depending on tone, just assume sarcasm. I might be direct but I'm never offensive purposefully. I tend to forget others don't have my dry sense of humor.

8. I think Brad Pitt is ugly.

9. Death to Smoochy, Fight Club and Finding Nemo are my favorite movies however if you ask my husband, I have about 40 favorite movies. Whatever movie I'm watching at the time is generally my favorite (unless it sucks).

10. I have an often reoccuring dream that involves me going back to college as an adult which is weird because I still think one of the best decisions I ever made was quitting college after my freshman year(with a 4.0 mind you).

There, so maybe you know me a little better now and maybe I can fall asleep. Happy Thanksgiving!

Surgery Scheduled

They will be cleaning up the torn labrum, reattaching it if it is possible (they won't know if it can be fixed until they get in there) and fixing the Femoral Acetabular Impingement (where the bone has a spur on it that catches the labrum and tears it - they shave the extra bone off). January 8th was the soonest they could get me in. Depressing, but it is what it is. I am on a waiting list and hoping that some other gimp out there becomes magically gimpless and cancels their surgery or decides they don't want to be on crutches over the holidays.

I'm confident I'm in good hands. The doctor performing the surgery is Dr. Mininder Kocher at Children's Hospital. He's done a lot of these and gave me every reason to believe that I'll be good to go after I'm recovered. I will never have full range of motion in my hips but it will be better than what it was even before the problem occurred, at least in the right leg. The most depressing statistic is that I have a 50% chance of the same thing happening in the other leg. And the other leg has had symptoms. But I have to try not to think about that because I can't have both legs done at once and this is what it is.

For recovery I can expect:
4 weeks on crutches/no weight bearing
PT at 2 weeks
Cycling with no resistance at 2 weeks
Swimming at 4 weeks
Light jogging at 3 months
Back to full training at 6 months
So in JUNE I can start training like a normal triathlete. This is best case scenario, of course.

I had a lot planned this year and it's hard to watch that go away. Notably, the Strong Like Bull training camp in Spain (February) and our honeymoon, which was going to be the St. Croix 70.3 and a week of relaxation. But again, thoughts to push out of my head. I guess.

In the mean time I'm allowed to keep training. I'm even allowed to train with a little bit of pain (if it hurts a lot it's a no no). I want to be as strong as I can be going into this so that I will recover as fast as possible. So I'm riding, swimming and cross training (even running a mile here and there) as much as possible. To be honest, it's really difficult to make myself get on a trainer for 3 hours when I don't really have a goal in mind for which to justify completing such a workout but it's keeping me sane for now so I shall keep doing it unless it starts to hurt.

In summary, I am still pretty distressed over the whole situation but I'm coming to terms with it as best as I can. It just seems like I've been through this sort of thing far too many times and at some point one loses a little fight. In the past, nothing I've had required surgery so this one is a little more difficult to accept. That said, the femur fractures, the sports hernia and the ongoing troubles I've had with hip flexors were all likely indirectly caused from my hip and fixing it now will extend the life of my hips. My dad just had his hip replaced a month ago (and is getting the other one fixed this year as well). So I guess this thing runs in the family.

And on that note, I don't know what else to say except that I'm trying to be less of a downer and I hope to put some happy news in here at some point but as of right now, I've got nothin.

Labral Tear Confirmed

Not a great day for me today. Seems like all I can do is cry since this news. I think that I've been trying to stay positive and pretend this thing isn't what I knew it was all along for so long now that now that I have confirmation, all the tears are finally allowed to come out. I'm sad. I'm angry. I will hopefully get some positivy back at some point but right now, I'm really pissed at my body. I wish so much that there could be one thing about it that didn't fight me every step of the way.

At least I know that I'm not crazy -- that the pain I've been experiencing is real. I guess that's the first step, confirming the reality and getting over myself. I just got this news today so the getting over myself part hasn't happened yet. The next step is a surgical plan with the hip specialist. I am fortunate to have friends in the medical community so I'm told I'm being rushed in (to a great doctor). This is good because for me because sitting around and contemplating all the bad that might come out of this (because that's the way my mind works, when bad things happen you start to expect the bad) is the worst thing I can do. I have done a significant amount of research on labral tears so I'm confident I'm informed on the consequences, risks, etc. with the surgical process. I am anxious to hear the doctor's opinion and to move forward. The less time I have to sit and stew, the better this will be...for everyone (poor Dave).

Posterior Tibial Tendonitis: For the person who left a comment asking about how I got over it

I’m sure you know having struggled with it for several years that it’s a difficult injury to get over. The location of the tendon is such that it doesn’t get much of a blood supply, so healing happens slowly. Though I did several things along the way to aide in healing, here are is what, I believe, ultimately lead to me getting over it:

1. Active Release Therapy. I spent so much time in physical therapy with the tendonitis that at some point, I think I may have actually been experiencing more soft tissue pain than tendon pain. After a year of PT* I got fed up and decided to give ART a try. Within one session my ankle/shin felt 80% better and within two sessions, I was essentially cured. If you are in the Boston area, both Dr. Kelly and Dr. Steinley at Active Recovery Boston are great.

*To elaborate on the PT part of it, I have no doubt that PT did help me and addressed some muscular imbalances that were contributing to the problem, especially in the beginning when the tendon, itself, was obviously inflamed. But as the injury progressed, I believe it became less of a tendon problem and more of a soft tissue injury, I just didn’t know it as I had been in PT so long for pain that was in the same area of the body, that I had forgotten what the pain originally felt like. Looking back on it, as PT progressed, the pain moved higher up my leg in the lower shin area. There was still some pain on the inner part of the ankle but it wasn’t nearly what I had been experiencing when I was first evaluated.

2. Orthotics. I went through several different versions of (insanely expensive) orthotics until I found a pair that really worked for me. I found an amazing gait analysis/custom orthotic person. I believe it was my third pair and I am still using that pair. For anyone in the Boston area who might be interested, her name is Rebecca Arner-Brown at Boston University PT.

3. Warming up properly. I forced myself to ride the bike or hop on the elliptical for 10 minutes before I completed a stretching routine and ran. Prior to that, I had always stretched the muscles without warming up first. I know there are different thoughts on stretching, when you should/shouldn’t, etc. but I really believe being warmed up made a difference.

4. Always wear shoes. Never, ever, ever walk anywhere without wearing a pair of shoes, and preferably a pair of shoes with arch support. This is especially important when the tendon is inflamed. And by never, ever, ever I mean never, ever, ever. Still to this day, I wear Crocs in the shower, keep a pair of slip-ons next to my bed to wear when I get up in the middle of the night, etc. While I've been doing some reading up barefoot running and believe there is some validity to the new train of thought that we weren't meant to run with cushioned shoes and arch support, I also know that my arches literally touch the ground and when I walk barefoot even for a short time, I feel it. Wearing shoes all the time has worked for me and having dealt with this injury for a long time, I have no plans of changing what works.

5. Orthotics in my bike shoes. I spend a lot of time on my bike. Though you’re not stressing those tendons as much as you would be if you were running, you’re still stressing them, not to mention I’m often getting off the bike and going straight into a run. Anyhow, these things are great and relatively cheap: Superfeet

I hope that was helpful and good luck with your injury. It’s definitely a frustrating one!

Here is my hip

I am not sure if I'm excited or freaked out by the fact that it looks like it's wearing a wedding band.

I had an MR Arthrogram today. For those unfamiliar with it an MR Arthrogram is a proceudure where your hip joint is injected with contrast dye before MRI images are taken of the hip. I left with a cd full of images that mean nothing to me (see betrothed hip above). Hopefully some answers on the hip pain will come tomorrow.

This has been a pretty effed up day for me. I was, still am in fact, totally freaked out by this whole procedure and I'm not exactly sure why. I have had surgery before...elective surgery where they knocked me out and the whole nine yards. I was fine with that. I mean, not fine, but I wasn't bothered by it and in comparison to that, I would say that I was about 100 times more freaked out about having pictures taken of my hip than having surgery. I've been trying to reason it in my head all night and I still haven't come to a conclusion. My current theory is that I'm more freaked out by the outcome of the procedure than the procedure itself. The fact that it's done and I'm still freaked out validates that hypothosis.

A few points before I have a diagnosis. This is all stuff that I've realized only because of this injury/downtime/whatever it might be.

1. I have a favorite MRI provider. WTF? This isn't right (btw, it's Shields. If you live in the New England are and are in need of an MRI, go to Shields).

2. I have a fovorite MRI provider for a reason. I know some of you think I'm crazy. Hell, sometimes I think I'm crazy. Injury is such a perspective thing. I have some friends who have been in the sport of triathlon for years and have never experienced a minor injury, let alone a serious one. I started athletics at the age of 28(ish) as a type 1 diabetic/undiagnosed celiac. Between that time and now (5 years) I have spent over a year in physical therapy for posterior tibial tendonitis, 1 tibial stress fracture, 2 stress fractures of the femoral shaft and 1 femoral shaft stress reaction. When stuff goes wrong I just assume the worst and not to sound like a punk but for f*ck's sake, can you blame me?

3. Can we elaborate on that 5 years in sport thing? Dave and I were chatting today about "having what it takes" in general. That's not somthing that you can teach. Having what it takes....what it takes to do whatever (be an Elite athlete, do a triathlon, lose weight, whatever it might be) takes a certain amount of "something" given your current situation. I honestly believe that something is the only thing that has gotten me to where I am today. I mean seriously, I am not an athlete. I've been a bump on the log for except for the last 1/2 decade of my life, few years of my life if you want to get technical about it. I have fallen apart at every turn. I mean seriously, who breaks their femurs? Those are some hard bones to break! And after breaking their femurs, who keeps going? Totally unbalanced people like me keep going. Oh, I broke a femur? Oh well. How long will it take for that to heal?

Priorities. I love sport. I hated my life before sport. Sport brought me Dave. Sport brought me perspective. Sport brought me positive influence. Sport brought me all the stuff I've been missing my whole life. Like I said, how long will it take for those femurs to heal?

I started thinking about my life over the last year and what it would mean if I suddennly couldn't compete like I wanted to. My husband asked me if the consequenses of this year were that I couldn't compete anymore (a very realistic possibility), if I would take this last year back. Holy crap that was a hard question. I went from having 0 medals to having more than a dozen within one season.

Priorities.

Yes. I would take it back in a heartbeat if it meant not having to worry like I have for the last few months. Take the medals, I don't care.

Pain in the butt, no hip, no butt...?

Things got a little bit worse, and better, and worse again since my last post. This is most definitely the most frustrating injury I've ever had. On some days I can't walk without wincing in pain and on other days, I feel almost normal except that there's just enough pain there to let me know that something isn't right.

Everything was feeling decent when I went for the test run last week. I made it 6.5 miles (surprisingly at a respectable pace without even trying) and it didn't feel too horrid. I felt tight and a little sore in the butt, but didn't have any of that sharp pinching pain I had been previously experiencing. I woke up the next day and felt the same as I had the day before except for quite a bit of pain in the middle of my butt cheek and some occasional numbness traveling down to my calf and bottom of my foot (presumably my piriformis muscle compressing my sciatic nerve). That night, I foam rolled my butt and sat on a tennis ball for awhile - that hurt so badly it made my eyes water but before falling asleep, I felt pretty good....until I woke up the next morning.

For the next few days, it was all I could do to walk a block. Each step caused radiating pain down my leg, mostly in my groin. I was sure, now, that what I have is a labral tear and that I'd made it worse with the tennis ball. I was so sure, in fact, that I scheduled the appointment for the MR Arthrogram. And I was still sure of it this morning waking up with the same pain as the previous two days. I dragged myself to the pool in an effort to rid myself of my foul mood. The swim felt great (more on that later...I am swimming really well right now) but my leg still ached. Quickly becoming cranky again, I forced myself to do some core work and for good measure before hitting the grocery store, I decided to foam roll a little bit on my hamstring and the front of my quad. I did this for about 2 minutes, stood up and immediately noticed that the pain was gone....like COMPLETELY gone. I went shopping, walking up the stairs at Whole Foods without any pain whatsoever (which I haven't been able to do for at least 2 weeks), came home and still no pain. As I type, things have not changed...no pain aside from a strange stab in my butt here and there.

Consider me baffled, crazy or plagued...because each of those is probably true. I have no idea what's going on but I'm not giving up. On tap for next week:

Monday: 1 hour deep tissue massage with a new person I've heard amazing things about.
Wednesday: Another ART appointment
Thursday: Physical Therapy evaluation with a Manual and Manipulative Physiotherapy expert.
next Monday: MR Arthrogram to check for torn labrum.

I am still hoping that I'm able to cancel the last one on that list due to progress with the other three.

It's funny, really. I am in an awesome mood right now because I'm not in pain and that gives me hope. It's crazy this roller coaster I've been on. I'd almost rather be in pain all the time than have these ups and downs. They are hard to cope with.

Good News

First, thanks for the comments. DM – I did get a massage from my therapist and it was a HUGE help. HUGE! It felt about 75% better after my last appointment and I have another scheduled for today. And HG – I did have an MRI done as a fracture was the first thing I suspected (having had 3 femoral shaft stress fractures in the past). The MRI showed everything was normal, no fractures. I have an MRA (where they inject dye directly into the hip joint and then do an MRI) scheduled for a few weeks but the good news is, I don’t think I’ll need it.

I have long suspected that something was up with my road bike fit. I noticed when I was riding the Computrainer a few months ago that I was constantly pushing myself back on the seat. By constantly I mean, like every 10 seconds or so and by shoving myself back on the seat, I mean taking my hands and forcefully pushing my ass back and trying to maintain that position (which probably explains why I always have sore shoulders). I knew this probably wasn’t right but since it wasn’t hurting me to ride I didn’t really think much of it until I started having all these hip problems so I thought I’d get it checked out.

I did some research on local fitters and decided to make an appointment with Hussam at ATA Cycle in Concord. I won’t go into details (check out the videos on the link for info, it’s pretty cool) but I was highly impressed with Hussam from the moment I stepped into the bike shop. It’s obvious he knows his stuff.

First, the body measurements. Guess what? I am an oddly shaped person. I think he called me a “challenge.” For starters, I’m short – that’s strike one, but I’m not just short, I’m all out of proportion. Here are the odd things:
1. I have the shortest torso, like, ever.
2. My arms are short but relative to my torso, they’re actually long.
3. My legs are so short I couldn’t even fit over the measuring stick thing that they jam between your crotch to measure leg length.
4. I have extremely long femurs relative to my leg length. This should make me a powerful rider (yay…something good for once).
5. My hands and feet are tiny. Like smaller than child size tiny.

Now the bike fit. Two statements from Hussam that were like music to my ears:
1. You must have an incredibly high tolerance for pain.
Why? I ask.
2. Because surely riding in this position had to hurt. You were putting all the pressure on your hips, not your legs. This most definitely would have developed into a chronic injury if you had kept riding this way. Especially when climbing, your femurs had nowhere to go so you instinctively shoved your butt back on the seat to give them room and all that extra force was being applied to your hips. I’m amazed that you were able to ride a whole season this way.

And there you have it. There is a reason for all the problems I’ve been having. Hussam has developed his own fully adjustable lab bike (again, check out the link for details). He put me on it and tweaked some stuff, starting me off with a close to optimal position. It felt different, but good. As he does this, there is a meter on the floor which reads the wattage you are producing. After warming up a bit, we played with a few things to find the right comfort/higher power output. I never realized how big of a difference a tiny adjustment can make in terms of power output. I watched my power increase more than 30 watts based on tiny little changes. After we got things tweaked and I had been riding for awhile in that position, Hussam switched me back my original position and I could instantly feel pain in my hips and lower back – I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. In the end, we ended up raising my seat over an inch (I think it was closer to two inches). We also decided a different handlebar would suit my setup better as we should drop the bars a bit but can’t with the type of bar I have right now. But I like my bars and I’m fine with leaving them as is for now. Maybe I’ll look in to changing that before Strong Like Bull.

It’s been longer than two weeks since my last run. As of right now I am pain free and tomorrow I am going to attempt a short run. I have been near pain free for days and let me tell you, it’s been hard not attempting a run already! But I am on my Coach prescribed off season so I’m not supposed to be running anyway. That said, I have a feeling this run will go well and that I’ll be able to cancel that MRA appointment. I really hope so because even though I see needles many times on a daily basis, I can’t get used to the idea of a giant one being shoved right into my hip socket. Ouch.