Sorry I dropped off the face of the Earth for a few days there. I've been busy, busy with work and life in general. And I have to apologize for a falling a little behind on my blog reading. I've been trying to play catch up. The other day Google Reader told me I was 80 posts behinds. Yikes!

Physical therapy went well this week. I haven't had my knee taped all week and I've been able to get through everything they've been giving me. Today they upped my time on the treadmill to seven minutes and I ran all seven at 6 mph with no tape.

My knee doesn't feel weak anymore, which is good. I had my 30 day evaluation today and they asked me how far I think I've progressed since I started. I said about 95%. I don't think I'm back completely yet, but I'm getting there.

They also told me that I could start slowing adding distance to my runs. I'm really going to try to get something between three and five miles in sometime before therapy on Monday. I'm going to be gone this weekend for my friend's wedding though, so I have no idea when I'm going to try to fit it in.

(P.S. I've been doing a lot of thinking about things lately and after the wedding I will have a longer post explaining my new goals for the rest of the year in light of the injury and everything.)

I'm learning there are good days and there are bad days when it comes to PT. After the excitement of Monday's run, I was pretty disappointed when PT on Monday and Tuesday didn't go well.

There was a lot of pain in my knee and I couldn't run on the treadmill for the five minutes either day.

On Tuesday one of the therapists watched my form from the back and said part of my problem may be that my hips collapse in when I run, which puts additional strain on my knees.

Now we've added a bunch of hip strengthening exercises to the regime.

This morning's session went better. I was able to run for the five minutes at 7 mph.

The downside was I found out I'm probably going to need another three or four weeks of therapy. My doc had originally told me I'd only need four, but I guess after three weeks, there's still a lot more work to do.

It's frustrating news, but I'm trying to keep my chin up about it. I have homework to try to run again this weekend. Again I have another crazy crazy weekend that starts tomorrow.

I'll be down in the D.C./Baltimore area for my friend's bachelorette party and then Saturday I'm supposed to grab lunch with a friend back here before heading back to Baltimore with another set of friends for Artscape. And maybe somewhere in there a friend from home is supposed to come visit. Oh and I totally want to see The Dark Knight. Batman was my favorite super hero as a little kid! Yikes! I'm going to need a weekend to relax from my weekend!

Before I get into how PT has been going, I need to give a big fat thank you to all of you guys for your comments on Tuesday. I was seriously bumming about my knee. Couple that with a less than stellar day at work and you have the makings of an absolutely foul attitude.

Your little bits of motivation were super helpful though and by Wed. I was in much better spirits about everything.

This morning's PT went well. I was able to crank the treadmill up to 7 mph for the last two minutes of my five minute run and there wasn't any pain! Whoooo to the hooo!

I think this weekend I'm going to try running outside. My PT Jackie asked me if I had tried running at all and I said no, I didn't realize I was supposed to. She said it was kind of up to me. So if I have time this weekend, I'm going to give it a whirl. (I've got a wedding shower and a graduation party and driving to and from Allentown this weekend though, so I'll just have to see what the schedule allows for.)

And guys I have some sad news about HMT...turns out he's got a girlfriend. Major bummer LOL! No big deal really, it just means I'll probably have fewer hilarious updates for you.

Honestly though, is it weird to want to be best friends with your entire physical therapy group? There are like five or six of them who are all my age and all super cool and let's be honest my co-worker and I talk about how we need some friends outside of the newspaper all the time. So then what's the best way to ask a whole bunch of my physical therapists to hang out with us sometime?

I've been through five physical therapy sessions so far since this injury happened more than a month ago. I've rested, I've iced, I've done my PT homework and last night we were going to try taping my knee cap in place and running.

She taped me up good. So good that it felt weird to walk, but once I loosened it up and got the hang of it I was ready to tackle the treadmill. She wanted me to try five minutes. It was good going in the beginning. Then the tape slipped and it was hello pain.

They re-taped me at the end of the session last night and sent me on my way.

Well peeps, this whole taping the knee cap into place thing sucks. Getting in and out of my car is awful. It hurts to bend my knee because of the tape. Last night, a few of us from work got together to watch D-3 (Who doesn't love the Mighty Ducks?) and I could barely sit still. I had to keep shifting positions.

And then when we were leaving one of the guys asked me if I had a comeback race planned.

Oh boy, that must have hit a nerve more than I realized because I'm driving home and next thing I know I'm crying about how much I miss running and how much this whole thing sucks and how frustrated I am.

I'm trying to tell myself that I need to pull it together. I don't think I've ever really cried about an injury, but this one is really getting to me. I called up my friend Josh because he's a runner and who the heck else is going to understand this? (You may remember Josh from previous posts. He's my friend from school who is also laid up with an injury. He broke his leg and had to have surgery and he's going through PT now too.)

He was able to calm me down. We chatted about how much this whole PT thing and not being able to run sucks. And then I tried to go to sleep, but my stupid taped knee wasn't really helping.

Whooo this post is getting long I'll keep the last bits brief.

This morning's PT went better. The tape stayed in place and my five minutes on the treadmill didn't bother me.

I'm quite a sight at work now though. Knee taped. Hobbling around the office. Leg propped up on my recycling bin which is balancing on top of my garbage can under my desk.

Unfortunately I don't have much of an HMT update for today. Last night and this morning he was super busy with people. I mean he came over and chatted with me a little bit last night about how my weekend was and made the occasional snarky comment or two, but that was about it.

Thoughts, comments, advice on how to proceed from here are always appreciated LOL!

I'm a dork because I have PT tonight and I specifically planned out an outfit to wear. Yes that's right I have a serious problem. You may all remember from my previous post that HMT went to one of my rival high schools. Well we just so happened to play them in football in our homecoming game during my sophomore year. For every homecoming game student council printed spirit t-shirts with some sort of catchy, but usually not so funny, "our team will beat your team" slogan.

I'm wearing it tonight. It's kelly green and rather bright. With black shorts.



Yes, I'm a huge dork. But if nothing else it will be a conversation starter.

In other news, my 4th of July was excellent. I went to Washington, D.C. to watch the concert and fireworks from the West Lawn of the Capitol building. It poured a lot and we got very, very wet, but we had a great time, and it wasn't so bad that they had to cancel the fireworks.

Really there's no better place to be on the 4th than D.C.

Also went to see Wall-E this weekend. Check here for my thoughts and to see the trailer. (Don't worry no spoilers).

I had PT again this morning and it wasn't nearly as painful when Jackie rub out my IT Band! Whoo!

The foam roller still hurt though. They keep telling me it will stop after a while. I'm not 100% sure I believe them.

They had me doing a couple of new exercises today. Nothing too crazy. It was mostly stuff on machines you'd find in any normal gym.

The one funky thing was this thing called the Fitter. You basically slide back and worth across to build strength for lateral movements. (The guy in the picture kinda looks like a creeper.)

HMT said it was, "like skiing, without the skis and the poles and the snow."

So really, not so much like skiing at all. But it was kind of a fun toy to play on.

Jackie said we're going to try out running next week. I'm really nervous about it. I want to get back to it so bad, but I'm so afraid I'm going to be disappointed when I try it out. I guess we'll see what happens.

Here's my quick HMT update: Turns out he's from the same hometown as I am. He went to a high school not too far from mine and graduated two years before me. He knows some of the same people I know from high school. Uncanny.

Today we chatted about all kinds of sports stuff. Mostly football. Mostly him making fun of Notre Dame football and both of us talking about the couple excellent pro's Maryland has turned out lately.

This is about as personal as I've ever gotten on the blog...I feel like I might be crossing into that emo kid crap. Warn me if I am.

Well homies, I've had two (that's right two) physical therapy sessions since I last blogged. Monday night and then again this morning.

Monday's PT wasn't too bad. My physical therapist is this really nice girl named Jackie. I'm thinking she can't be that much older than me. Monday she basically tested my leg strength and flexibility and went over a few very basic strengthening exercises that would be my homework. Nothing too complicated. Mostly stuff I was familiar with from teaching my various classes.

This morning....well peeps that was another story all together. I warmed up on the elliptical for five minutes. Then did the basic leg strengthening exercises. No problem there.

And then they brought out the dreaded foam roller. You may have remember reading Akshaye's post about this not too long ago. Holy crap did that hurt.

Hottie McHottster Therapist (HMT) who was there saw my girl pull it out and then saw me eying it nervously and he was like, "Yea that's for you."

So I rolled very slowly and very painfully over it for a few minutes. But then I got to stop and do some leg presses and calf stuff while chatting with HMT.

Once I finished that and was waiting for my girl to stretch me out (more on that in a bit) I started chatting with HMT and one of other therapists who told me she is training for her first half marathon. Turns out it's the Va. Beach half...the one I'm trying to do if my knee rehabs in time. So we chatted about that and HMT was impressed by my story about how I ran it last year with strep throat.

Then Jackie came to stretch me out, which included a rub down of the IT band. OH MY GOD PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. Holy crap I can't even put into words how much it hurt. It was not fun. At all. Even a little bit. But I survived and get to go back for more on Thursday morning. At least I've got some eye candy that I get to scope out haha.