I just got back from a two week work/vacation trip to Charleston. Ben was wrapping up some work training that he was down there for, and it seemed like a good excuse for a change of scenery. 

I drove down the day after Hurricane Ian hit South Carolina, but other than driving through some of the remaining bands of rain in Virginia (which was not fun), by the time I got to Charleston, you hardly would have known a hurricane had just passed through. 

We spent the first weekend settling in, eating some delicious fried chicken and BBQ, and I slept a lot. I did not realize how much the 8-hour solo drive would wipe me out, but I was dragging by Saturday evening and even Sunday I was still struggling. 

Despite the fact that I was on the struggle bus on Sunday, we spent the day over on Sullivan's Island. We explored Fort Moultrie, which guarded Charleston Harbor. 

It was definitely still flooded from the storm. 

We also walked down to the beach, though it was overcast and pretty cool, so we didn't hang out for long.

During the first week, I did a mix of working and taking vacation time.

Our AirBnb was a great set up for working. During the week I bounced between the living room and the beautiful screened in porch. I wish I had taken a picture of the porch. It was just such a nice change of scenery during my workdays. 

On Thursday, I had booked a kayaking/fossil hunting trip. This was the coolest way to spend a day in Charleston. The group met up and kayaked for about 25 minutes to an island in one of the rivers. Then we worked with our guide who was an expert in finding and identifying 30 million year old fossils. 

He helped me find my first ever shark's tooth, and then helped others in the group find and identify all sorts of fossils. I'd never been on a trip like this and it was so cool to find all these old fossils that were still in pretty good condition because they had been preserved in the limestone. If you're in Charleston and looking for something kind of unique to do, I highly recommend this! 

I spent Friday afternoon soaking up a perfect 80 degree day at Isle of Palm.

In the evening we met up with a friend from PA at Edmond's Oast Brewery. Multiple people had recommended the brewery to us, including a coworker whose daughter works there, and it was just really nice to catch up.

We did a really fun day trip to Savannah my second Saturday in town. It actually was my favorite part of the whole trip, and I'll dedicate a separate post to that. 

My in-laws were supposed to get into town Sunday morning and we were going to to do lots of the traditional Charleston things -- walk around the battery, visit Rainbow Row, go see the Pineapple fountain. 

But they ended up with the travel day from hell and instead of landing in Charleston at 9 a.m., they got there at 7 p.m.

Ben and I walked around, hit some of the touristy spots and stumbled upon some sort of festival on King Street where the road was closed to traffic so pedestrians could stroll and check out all the vendors set up. 

The Halloween decorations were on point.

Monday was our day of museums. We visited the Old Slave Mart Museum downtown, and then went over to Mt. Pleasant to Patriots Point. 

The highlight was obviously the photo-op with the Top Gun fighter jets. 

And we of course did a ghost tour. Ghost tours are one of my favorite, kind of silly things to do when visiting cities. You always get to hear a couple of cool stories and some of the local folklore.

Our trip ended with Ben's graduation on Thursday, and then the long drive back home on Friday. 

It was a fun two weeks full of good food.

Our Charleston Recommendations

So I've officially been in PT for about 2.5 months now, and the last time I checked in, I mentioned that I didn't think I was making too much progress. 

Well since then, I suffered a big set back, and it felt like we had to start all over. 

Sometime in mid-August we were ramping up some of the intensity of my PT exercises, and I was doing a new move where I had a resistance band around my waist and my PT was holding it behind me, and I basically had to walk around the room pulling her behind me. 

At the time this didn't seem to bad and was kind of even fun and funny. 

But the next day, I started feeling a lot of discomfort in my knee. And the day after that, I could barely walk down the stairs I was in some much pain. I emailed my PT right away and she had me back off several things before I came in to see her again. 

I also was waking up in the middle of the night in terrible pain, so I scheduled a follow up appointment with my doctor. I was terrified I had torn my meniscus. I couldn't get in to see him for two more weeks, and when my PT did an assessment at my next appointment, she didn't think I had any structural damage. 

By that point some of the pain had started to ebb, but certain movements still bothered my knee. We basically threw out everything I had been doing in PT up until that point and had to start over. 

I was devastated. There were many, many tears. 

This hip pain has been going on for over a year now. My hamstring has been about 9 months. To have given myself another injury in PT, forcing us to start all over and feeling like I lost 1.5 months of work was beyond frustrating. 

This was the last time I raced, last December, and I was dealing with these issues well before then.

But we started over. I had a new set of exercises that focused first on continued stabilization of my hips and knees. After a couple weeks of that, we added in a few more weight bearing and balance exercises. 

Running was off the table again, and honestly, I was OK with it because I was so scared of another set back. 

About two weeks ago now, I had an assessment at PT to gauge progress. I didn't feel like I had made many gains, but I performed better on all the tests than I had back in June at my intake appointment. I had better balance and less pain. 

At that point, my PT started to add in some trigger point work to specifically target the areas where I was having continued pain. In my hamstring, that seems to have made a significant difference. About a week after that I walked 9 minutes before I felt a single twinge in my hamstring. 

That might not seem like a lot, but it was a really big win for me. I haven't been able to walk without pain in over a year now. So 9 minutes was a lot. 

At my appointment last Monday, she told me it was time to bring back the running intervals. To be honest, I wasn't ready, and I told her as much. I'm afraid of another set back and having to start all over again. 

But she said the only way my body would learn to run without pain again is that if we reintroduced that movement pattern. I have very specific parameters I have to follow. A 10-minute walking warm up, followed by 4-5 sets of two minute intervals. I have to monitor my pain levels and my form, and I'm not allowed to run on consecutive days. 

The first run I did was uncomfortable, and my hamstring didn't feel great when I got home. But I did my PT exercises and the next morning it actually felt pretty good. 

I am still nervous about all of this, and very scared of another set back. But as of now, things actually seem like they might be moving in the right direction finally. 

I know I still have a long road back to where I was running wise, but after a crushing disappointment with August's setback, I'm feeling a bit more hopeful. 

One of these days I'll stop posting my book posts almost half way through the following month! But better late than never I suppose! August was a slower month of reading for me. It was a really busy month as summer wound down, but the five books I read were pretty good for the most part!

Five Stars

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have a feeling this will end up being the best book I read in 2022. This book takes a close look at the Sackler family and the way they aggressively marketed OxyContin. The writing is phenomenal. I couldn’t put this book down and multiple times I’d finish a chapter and be thinking how can this be a true story. The insidiousness of this family is truly mind blowing

Four Stars

Reservations for Six by Lindsey J. Palmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three couples meeting at the same restaurant six times per year to celebrate each of their birthdays. It's a tradition that's bound them together forever. But when one of the members of the group makes a surprising announcement at a birthday dinner, the friend group gets shaken up. Told through multiple points of view, you get a look into what is happening with each couple, the secrets they keep from each other and from the group and sense of never quite knowing what's happening with even your closest friends!

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Jess arrives at her stepbrother's very fancy Paris apartment, she finds him missing. He's left her a strange voicemail, and she can't quite place how he affords such a fancy apartment on his journalist salary. As Jess begins trying to figure out what happens, the other residents of the building have odds reactions. This book was good, and while I thought I'd figured out the twist, it turns out I definitely hadn't. A fun, though dark, thriller like Lucy Foley typically delivers.

Metropolis by B.A. Shapiro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I saw this author speak at the Gaithersburg Book Festival and was inspired to pick up her book after hearing her talk about it. Metropolis is a storage facility and this book tells the story of six people who either have storage units or work at Metropolis. At the book's opening, someone has fallen down an elevator shaft. You don't know if they're alive or dead, if the jumped or were pushed. The book jumps back in time and from six different perspectives you find out what happened to get to that point and what happens after. I really enjoyed this book, even though everything maybe tied up a bit too nicely at the end.

Three Stars

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I fell in love with Riley Sager books over the last year or so, but his newest one really didn't do it for me. It started off pretty slow and took me a while to get into it. There was also a paranormal element to this book that I thought just really detracted from the whole story line. One thing I've always loved about Sager's thrillers is that they're so twisty, and I can't believe half the time that something like that could happen. But in this case, one of the major plot points just wasn't believable and that kind of ruined the whole book for me.

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