It's been nearly a year and half since I first started experiencing my hip issues, which then turned into hamstring issues. The last race I ran before shifting into rehab mode was the Rehoboth Beach half back in December 2021. 

That is a long time for me to not lace up my shoes for a race morning starting line.

Recovery from this injury has been slow and full of set backs. I spent several weeks trying to rest, and then do my regular mobility/rehab routines at home. I'd make some progress, but never fully recovered.

After being frustrated with my own lack of progress, in June I visited my orthopedic doctor and got myself into PT. 

This is hands down the longest amount of time I've spent in physical therapy, and let me tell you that is hard for me. I am not patient. When I felt like I was suffering setbacks in August, I was so disheartened. 

But I stuck with all the PT. I've done a million and one balance and stabilization exercises to help provide support for my loose joints. My PT focused on building stability up the entire length of my body. My hips are in a better place and so are my knees. My right ankle is still really wobbly though, so I'm still working on stabilization exercises for that. 

By building all this balance and stability, my body is better able to support me through the motion of running without having to overtax muscles or recruit muscles that really should have anything to do with running and then causing injuries. 

I've mentioned in previous PT posts that I was on a run walk plan starting back in the fall. 

Over time, I've been building up my running stretches and reducing my walking. Yesterday, I felt like I hit a really big milestone. I ran for a full 30 minutes with less than 90 seconds of walking over the course of the run. (See Garmin pic at top of post).

I've also managed to increase my distance from the 2.5 miles that I had been doing during most of my recovery up to 3 miles. 

That might seem like such a small thing, but to me it's a huge sign of improvement. These runs, while so, so much slower than I used to be able to go, have been fairly pain free. 

I definitely feel like I'm starting over, which is hard, but I'm also really grateful that I might finally be seeing the light at the end of this injury tunnel. 

I know I still have a lot to do in terms of maintenance of everything I've been working on in PT as I slowly rebuild my endurance, and then hopefully my speed. But I'm finally seeing some progress, and that's huge.

It's been a little over a month since I first tested positive for Covid, and getting back to running has been kind of tough. 

I got pretty sick with Covid. I was in bed for two days straight, and then on day three and four, it felt like a real victory when I could venture downstairs to the sofa. I had a bad headache, horrible sinus congestion, a mild cough and major fatigue. 

I felt bad for a full week, and it took a solid two weeks for the fatigue to go away, and even then I got winded walking very short distances. 

After all the progress I'd been making in PT slowing building my running back up and getting my hip and hamstring to cooperate, it was so demoralizing to have all that wiped out by one really bad sickness. 

But alas, here we are. 

I attempted my first run about three weeks post-positive test. It was really painfully slow, and involved a lot of walking. Honestly, not really sure you could even call it a run. It was probably more of a walk with some running intervals mixed in. But it happened, and my hamstring was grouchy, but not as grouchy as my lungs. 

I gave myself some more time to recover before trying out a run again. 

The second time I went out was maybe four weeks post-positive test. It was a freakishly warm December day, and I was excited to be outside. But running was hard, and slow. But I did a bit more running than walking this time. It was a good baby step. 

As time has passed, I've tried to increase my number of runs from one per week to two per week. The first week I did that, the first run felt pretty good. But the second run a couple of days later was really hard. 

Just this past week, I ran three times and increased my distance to three miles on one of the runs. (I'd been sticking with a 2.5 mile loop for much of my PT recovery). My times are still really slow, between an 11 and 12 minute mile, and that is so humbling and really hard. When I first started running seriously back in college, I was clocking 12-minute miles. And after years of dedication and persistence, I'd settled in around a 9-9:30 minute mile. I'm no speed demon, but I always felt good about those times. 

To feel like I'm starting over again from the very beginning is just tough. I'm happy to be running, and I know with time my pace and endurance will come back. Right now, this feels like a crappy phase that I need to get through, and I know there's no way to rush it or else I'll just get another injury. 

So that's where things stand. Covid took a big toll on my running. I'm glad to be back to it, but it feels like I'm starting all over. 

December was a bit of a mixed bag of reading for me. Covid really halted my ability to read much for a good chunk of the month because it hurt my eyes to try to focus on the words. A couple of books I expected to be great fell flat, but there were a few pleasant surprises in the mix too. 

Four Stars

Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances by Leland Melvin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A friend in my book club got this for me a few years ago and it's been sitting on my TBR pile for quite some time. But it was the perfect book to close out 2022. It's an uplifting story of how Leland Melvin overcame an injury that he thought meant he'd never get to go to space. I learned a lot about Melvin's life, both as an astronaut and as his time serving at NASA in a variety of different roles. I've always found space interesting and it was fun to read a book about one of the more recent astronauts. I feel like lots of has been written, filmed, etc about the early days of the space program, but more recently stories aren't as widely told.

The Maid by Nita Prose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Molly is a maid who works at a fancy hotel. It's never specifically stated that Molly is autistic, but it seems that's what the author would want us to assume. Because her reactions are perhaps different than "normal," Molly soon finds herself in some hot water with the police over the death of one of the hotel's customers. But Molly and some of her friends set out to clear her name. I loved the friendships Molly develops in this book, and the twists this book took to figure out who killed the person in the hotel room.

Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been really enjoying escapist books lately and this one about witches and dark magic really struck a good note. On the way home from a party Ivy and her boyfriend almost hit a young naked woman in the road, and after that strange things start happening at Ivy's house. Dead rabbits show up, someone seems to be inside the house taking a bite of her snacks. Ivy's mom and aunt disappear, but clearly have a sense of what's going on. This book took so many turns and was definitely a bit darker than I expected for a YA book, but it was so different than my normal reads, that I really enjoyed the change of pace.

Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was fun and definitely different from a lot of my normal reads. Emmy is a witch who has fled her magical hometown for Chicago and has hoped to put magic behind her. But after she returns home out of a sense of familial duty to host the competition between all the witch-y families for power in the city, she finds herself pulled into a ploy to bring down one of the long dominant families. Her magic isn't as strong as it used to be, but the more time she spends in her hometown, the more she reconnects.

Three Stars

The Rewind by Allison Winn Scotch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book took me a little while to get through, and I couldn't tell if it was because I just wasn't feeling it or because I got sick in the middle of reading it and had to pause for a while. Two exes see each other for the first time in 10 years at a wedding. The next morning they wake up in the same bed together and neither of them remembers what transpired the night before that led them there. It picked up a bit at the end, but felt like a slog in the middle.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I normally love Ruth Ware's books, but this one wasn't one of my favorites. It took me a while to get into and it moved a bit slowly. I'm used to Ware's books grabbing me from page one and really sucking me in, and this one I felt like I had to force myself to finish a bit. The plot picked up around the midway mark as one of the main characters headed back to her college to look into the murder of her college roommate. The ending was certainly fast-paced like I'd expect, but it just took a while to get there, hence the three stars.

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