Another step forward

I have enough "doing no more damage" runs under my belt that I feel like I can write

"I'm running again!!"

In fact, today was a great run as I had NO PAIN during the run.  That was a pretty amazing feeling.  I could also feel myself recruiting muscles that haven't worked, well, they haven't come to the party in a very long time.

I'm doing a lot of mental focus work during my runs, trying to pay attention to muscle recruitment and proper form so that I can try to retrain the neural pathways to use the right muscles, instead of the "available" muscles.

I'm running very slowly and methodically, but I AM RUNNING!

The most current breakthrough happened right before Christmas, and as tired as I am of writing about injury (and I'm sure if anyone is still reading this blog, you are very tired of hearing about it), I feel a kind of duty to write about this lastest development.

In early December, I attempted to start training again (this was probably the third attempt since I stopped doing everything Swim.Bike.Run related in April).  Again, I found I couldn't even run a mile, 10 min on a trainer at VERY low intensity brought everything back.  I could swim, but a swim of more than 1000m brought back the tightness and I was using the steps to get out of the pool as I still couldn't stand from a crouch position (i.e. getting out via the side of the pool).

I was getting frustrated, so I tried a new group of therapists, now my chiroprator is AMAZING from a wholistic standpoint.  I went to these guys because they focus on hip issues and work with the Atlanta Falcons players.  I figured whatever I have going on couldn't be worse than what NFL Football players deal with.

I'd seen these guys before, and they couldn't believe I was still having issues.  Really just in conversation, my massage therapist asked "you didn't have a c-section, did you?"

"Why YES, I did have a c-section, do you think that could be causing my hips to keep rotating and the tightness."

I was met with... "wow, I really wish I would have asked you that a year ago"

***crickets***

then... "well, let me see what kind of scar tissue you have there..."

Suffice to say, it was pretty bad...  And now that I'm 6 weeks out from that day, I have NO DOUBT that is was the missing link to why I could NOT seem to get any better (healed).

We kept treating all the secondary issues that were CAUSED by this scar tissue...

I'm not saying that every single woman that had a c-section is going to have scar tissue problems, I'm not a dr. I don't know about that stuff... but if you did have a c-section and you've a reoccurring injury PUSH the issue with your docs/chiros/therapists, etc.

ASK them outright - "do I have scar tissue, how might that be impacting me?"

SOLUTIONS

I ran this past everyone of the people that I've been working with and frankly at this point everyone said the same thing... "that makes sense and it couldn't hurt!"

The plan is to go through micro-current massage on the scar tissue area.  I'm also seing another massage therapist to deal with adhesions/scar tissue in many of the muscles in my hip area...  (so not fun).  I'm also seeing my regular chiropractor, Dr. Pam Stone, for my whole body and Dr. Potter at Synergy Release Sports for my hip alignment specifically.

The difference in the past 6 weeks has been AMAZING!!  I'm down to one final "pain point" that occurs during bikes and runs, but I am swimming without pain FINALLY!!  The other good news is that at my last micro-current appointment the were able to pin point where this pain was emanating from and do some work on it, and it is even feeling better!!

The next piece in the puzzle was one of the reasons I switched to No Grains No Sugar.  That's a long story, so I'll save it for next post!

The main point of this post...  boy, I guess it's Don't give up trying to find the root cause of the problem and if you've had a c-section BRING IT TO THE ATTENTION of the medical folks you are working with if you are dealing with a chronic injury.

Finally, I can't thank everyone who have been caring about these issues for your support!! It's been a long road, but every journey is for a reason and I'm still trying to get myself back to healthy.

My plans this year are to ENJOY my training and races.  I am going to be careful to not push my training until I'm feeling really good!