Do you remember the “Uncola”? Well 2011 has turned out to be the “unseason” for me. I can trace it all back to a very very cold winter day on the Highline canal. I was not dressed warmly enough and I had done a tough weight session the day before and my legs were ripe for an injury. Isn’t it easy to introspective looking back? Ugh! I was running a long run by myself and it was just one of those days that everything was a challenge. My ipod froze and died, my water froze, my legs hurt and John and I somehow missed each other so that my plan to abort my run at 11 miles failed and I had to cover the full 20 miles to get a ride home. By the time I finished the ride I was miserable and I knew I’d hurt my left leg. At mile 7 or 8 as I was trying to find a comfortable gate I felt a wicked snap and heard a loud pop. I knew it couldn’t be good but the pain was instant and never really came back…this was 2 winters ago. Since that time I have been effectively working my way around a left hamstring injury…until the end of last tri season and last winter. Last fall I competed in all 3 National Championships and I knew after the Olympic it would be a battle to get my hamstring to hold out. The other struggle was being able to load it as much as I needed to in order to climb quickly and turn up the heat on the run. No matter the distance or how warmed up I was I could only do so much and then my hamstring would grab me and slow me down. I worked with Ken Sheridan on it for months and I’d hoped to manage it during the end of the season and fix it up during the winter months. Last winter a group of us were training for the Moab Red Hot 50K and it required miles and miles of easy trail running. Although Ken was treating me I knew it wasn’t right…my bad. The longer miles were fine as long as I stayed in a straight line and made no sudden movements. My hamstring would not respond and I would take an awesome face plant…it happened a few times and I was really getting worried. I would move to swing my left leg in front to catch me and it wouldn’t respond. My bad. Moab was great and I didn’t really worry about my leg figuring we could fix it right after Moab! That was in February for goodness sakes…surely that would be enough time. I started to train in earnest for tri season and speed work was the final straw. One day Tyler and I were running in Chatfield and I would be fine once I got moving but after we stopped it would really seize and not want to restart. Each interval it took longer to get moving and hurt more to stop…in keeping with my solid decision making skills about my own wellness I decided to try one more week. I ran with Barry and Jewels on the east side of town before Pilates and I could hardly get started for each interval. It got tighter and more messed up with each stride…the good news is that I would be able to stretch it out at Pilates, right? Duh!
Today is July 8th and I have officially bagged my tri-season. In late April I went to see Dr. Tim Mazzola at Cornerstone Orthopedics; a great non-surgical orthopedist. My kind of guy. He examined me, took x-rays and then moved to an MRI. Chronic severe tendonosis…whatever the hell that means! It turns out that I damaged my hamstring 18 months ago and since then my body has been struggling to let me do what I want by building gobs of scar tissue, shifting my pelvis and making other adjustments that have now all caught up to me. I started PT right away and considered a procedure called PRP. I have not found great research on PRP for hamstrings and it is experimental so my insurance scoffs at it while I have to bring $1,000 to the table. I decided to go “non-invasive” for 2 months to see if PT would resolve my issues. I have been an outstanding patient if I do say so myself. Both my running shoes and bike have gathered dust while I’ve been quite unsuccessful at finding other things to do with my time. It has been great to see friends I usually miss all summer and my golf game is improving so that is all good! The truth is I start each day feeling great and positive and by the end of many days I am pouting and frustrated…especially if I spent the day watching other people workout, race and otherwise move their bodies! I love being a fan however I find it catches up to me later in the day…self pity is SOOOO ugly! So each day I work on that…I know very well that I have friends and family who have much tougher roads and I need to take this time to be grateful for what I can do, have done and will be able to do again someday soon. As I always remind myself…I’m not making any money at this so I might as well cool my jets and ego!
The interesting news is that I met old friends at Lake2Lake, Jenn and Matt, and Jenn knew a guy who had PRP done in Boulder. She introduced me to Kevin who introduced me to Dr. Roger Nichols. Nichols is a radiologist at BCH and a very interesting guy. It turns out that he is a well kept secret as far as I’m concerned. He has been doing PRP on athletes for 5 years. He uses Ultrasound to see where he needs to inject patients. He told me without hesitation that I am a great candidate for PRP and he could fix me. The challenge is that I will need 2-3 months to build back up to full training mode. We talked about my hopeful race schedule; Nationals Aug 20th, ITU Worlds China Sept 11th, ITU Worlds Vegas Nov 5th and then that little race I registered for in June 2012…Coeur DeLene IM. He laughed and told me I wasn’t really helping him help me…thanks Jerry McGuire. So we decided on a new plan…cortisone shot immediately to allow me to train and race in Beijing and PRP when I return in late September. With that plan I would not be able to compete in Vegas which is a real bummer but IM 2012 has become a much bigger goal now…$630 bigger!
Yesterday, July 7th I received my shot…along with some serious lanacane for pain. I was really anxious about the shot. I hate needles, band aids, hospitals and anything associated with all of it! I was pretty wound up and really happy when Margaret agreed to make the trip with me! It turns out that Dr. Nichols knows Davis Phinney quite well liked to tell stories as he injected me. It was a good distraction and I never really felt much of anything. I could feel the needle moving around inside my leg but It never hurt! Phew! Now I have to wait 7 days to let the full effect of the medicine settle into my hamstring muscle, tendon and butt…so on July 14th I expect to take a bit of a run around the lake and maybe a ride around Bear Creek.
Time will tell after that. Dr. Nichols said he expects that the cortisone will cure me and I won’t need PRP. This was going to be a “BIG” season! One that I would set some PRs and prepare for longer distances…welcome the “unseason”.
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