Washington DC Day 2 and injury update

Oh I am behind on my posting...I had a busy week , including a 5 hours trip to the dentist chair that left me in pain for the rest of the week including right now as I type this....and also felt a little discouraged by my lack of progress to get back to running this week...

Ok Day 2 in DC.
It was Memorial Day.  What a special place to be on that Holiday. 
We headed back to the National Mall to visit more museums.
First up was the National Air and Space Museum.
There is so much to see there.
History of Apollo to the moon, The Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, WWII aviation, modern planes, several pieces from the Apollo missions including Buzz Aldrin Space suit.

Amelia Earhart's Plane:

Wright Brothers Plane:

 

Spirit of St Louis: Lindbergh's plane:

 

We got out and there was a Memorial Day Parade passing on the Mall:

We did a little dancing in the street:

We went to the National Museum of Natural History. 
This is where you can see the famous HOPE DIAMOND. 

We also walked to the Federal Triangle and saw Benjamin Franklin statue and the Old Post Office Building.

We also saw Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center:

Injury update:

I feel like I did not make a lot of progress this week.
I went to the PT only once because I had dentist and doctor appointments this week.
I walked about 2 hours in top siders without my orthotics and I paid for it the next day...lot of pain in my knee all day.  The next day (yesterday) was my 4 weeks follow up appointment with the orthopedist.

I went there with my list of questions and concerns hoping for good news.
I do like this doctor.  He has excellent bedside manners and he listens to me.
My main questions/concerns were about my orthotics.  I wanted to know if they could cause me to have other problems in the future with my hip or my ankle.  He said not likely but that pain in the feet is common and when that happens the PT adjust the orthotics.  I have no pain in my feet, the orthotics actually help with plantar fasciiatis and I have had no problems.   I told my doctor that I felt the best during the week in DC where I walked a lot of miles every day.  No IT band problems during that week also.  I told him that I feel worst since we have been back and I have been less active.  My IT band is on fire.  He examined my knee..pocking on spots where I used to hurt and also on the patella.  He says that it looks good.  He said that if I walked without my orthotics I should expect pain.
He also said that with time it is possible that I will be able to stop using the orthotics. 
He said that I need to always do strenght for my quads and calves even once I am done with PT.   I asked about the pain/soreness on the inside of my knee and if was caused by the tear and he said yes.

That part I have trouble with.  I told him that I hate knowing that another doctor said I needed surgery and that I wished I had come to him first.  It's always in the back of my head that this other doc wanted to go to the OR.  What if I am wasting my time all summer long?
The doctor told me that if he took all the runners or gymnasts in the OR for every injury some people would get dozen of surgeries!  Of course I prefer to not have a surgery. 
He said that he does not want to do a quick fix and that he wants to get me back on the road for a long time.  I like that plan of course. 

So the conclusion of this visit is....another 4-6 weeks of PT maybe just once a week (because at $40 per visit it is getting pricy) and 4 times at home or the gym for all the core and strenght work. 
Add more walking and elliptical and short runs.   No back to back elliptical or running days. 
It is the only way to know if I am getting better.  I agree.
I am dying to know if the orthotics work for running.
I am also scared of trying.  I don't want to regress.  That is the last thing I want.
Doc said I don't need to come back and see him if I am getting better so right now I don't have a follow up appointment.  That feels strange because I am not even close to being 100% better but I will go with it and hope that working with the PT will do the trick.

So this is where I am at.

I saw Spirit of the Marathon 2 this week.  Did you see it?
I loved it!
Of course seeing those 2 crazy cousins run made me believe that I could do it too.
The oldest one is 72!
Team Mimmo all the way!!!
There is a guy in the movie that was my pacer for 2 half marathons.  It's David.  He is the fiance of Julie who is the runner from LA who ran 52 marathons to raise money for pancreatic cancer.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads reading this!

Washington DC - Day 1

I want to post about our visit to DC..even though it had nothing to do with running.
Well I did see a ton of runners...every day, everywhere...I was so jealous of all of them.
For every runner I saw I did see one smoker....that is so sad... Lots of smokers.  I think it's because it is a busy city and here I don't see as many people but still.

I loved DC.
I knew I would like to visit this place but I did not think I would love it this much.
I am so impressed with everything we saw.

We did not rent a car for this trip.  We used the subway and we walked, a lot of miles.
We were lucky to stay in a hotel that was "central", we were about 0.5 miles from the White House and maybe 1 miles from the Mall.

We arrived Saturday around dinner time so no visiting that day except for a trip to Whole Foods to fill up the pantry and refrigerator we had in our room.  The hotel we stayed at had full breakfast every morning and dinners 3 nights that we were there and that was included in the price for the room.

Sunday we headed out and first stop was the White House.

 

Mister President was not coming out to say Hi so we continued our visit.

 

We went to the Mall.  We took the advice of the lady at the front desk of the hotel and took the subway...turns out we could have walked.

 

We got out of the subway station and on our left was George who is getting a tune up because of damages caused by an earthquake.

 

 
And on the other side : The Capitol!

 

We thought we would see 2 of the Smithsonian museums and then walk the Mall and see the War monuments and visit Jonathan's absolute favorite: Lincoln.

Silly us.

We had no idea how big those museums are.

We started with the National Museum of American History .

Wow.

First of all it is free.

It is fantastic.  So much to see.  We could have spent a whole day in there.  We saw many interesting things that could not be photographed like Lincoln's hat and the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner for example.

 

These are Dorothy's famous ruby red shoes

 

This is a piece of the World Trade Center

 

We spent a few hours in the Museum and we headed out to walk to the Lincoln Memorial.

It looked a lot closer than it really was!

Good thing the weather was perfect that day, nice and COOL.

 

We wanted to see all the war memorials because we knew that it would be super busy on Memorial Day.

 

We saw many war veterans and their families. 

 

World War II Memorial: Pictures don't do it justice.  It is really beautiful. There were many bouquet of red flowers that people brought to honor their loved ones and I found this flag on the Wisconsin pillar.

 

 

 

Vietnam War Memorial: Much more somber.  The wall has 58,272 names, including 8 women.

 

 

 

 

 Korean War Memorial Very impressive...with it's huge statues of soldiers...

 

 

Last for this post..because I know it is getting long...

 

Lincoln Memorial:

 

Jonathan could not wait to get there.

He is obsessed with Lincoln.

My parents gave him $50 for his fantastic report card and all the academic awards he won and he spent only $10 and what did he get...a book about Abraham Lincoln!

That made me happy!

 
View from the top of the steps:

 

 This is engraved where Dr King stood when he made his famous speech:

 

 

So this was just day 1.

So much history and so much things to learn.

I loved that my kids were interested in everything they saw.

 

Thank you for reading..

 

On the running or I should say no running front:

Saw PT yesterday, asked if OK to walk a 5K with my kids today.

Answer I got: NO.

Follwed by: BE GOOD. (like she knew no was not enough or something....)

I came home with the intention of doing it anyway.

I ended up deciding to wait for the 4th of July.

Being good sucks....but it will pay off I know it.

 

Have a good weekend!

Run a mile for me!

Cheers!

 

 

 

HAPPY NATIONAL RUNNING DAY!

HAPPY NATIONAL RUNNING DAY!

I say this with a heavy heart.
I wish today was the day of my comeback.

I saw the PT Monday. 
I asked my usual 104 questions.
One of those being : "what is the estimate day of my first run?"
PT....silence
Me "don't pretend you did not hear me"
PT "OK OK....hmmm next week...maybe one mile"
ME " You said that LAST week"
PT "we cannot rush this..."

She is a runner. She is young and dedicated. I like her. I decide to trust her.
She said I cannot run until I feel at least 80% better with the orthotics.
I could lie and say I am at 80%.
I am not.
It is hard to put a % and evaluate this.
I know it is not 80.
But it is at least 50.
Progress.
She said OK for power walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes.
30 minutes....that's how long it takes to sweat......
Well now that I am loosing fitness every time I blink my eyes maybe I will sweat within 5 minutes...

I noticed that this week I feel worst than I did while I was in DC.
During my trip we would walk all day.  7-8 miles per day.
I felt sore at the end of the day but I did not have pain in my knee.  I was sore in my right hip.  I had zero IT band pain while we were there.
This week...no more crazy walking and I have more pain in both my knee and my IT band.

I am thinking I need to walk more.
Or move to Washington DC.

Happy very important day to all of you.
Go out and run a mile for me.

DC posts coming up your way.

Here's a couple pics from our trip:

WWII Memorial:

George and the boys (from Lincoln memorial)

 
Arlington cemetary, JKF

Tidal Basin (Jefferson memorial in the back)

Back from DC, a DNS and the knee situation

We are back from a wonderful vacation in Washington DC.

I have a lot to say about Washington.
All of it is good.
I LOVE that city.
I was so impressed with everything I saw.
Everything was better than I thought it would be.  Well except the humidity!
I took more than 900 pictures. :)

I will post a few of them this week...

I am very behind on blog reading and commenting....I am sorry.  I will catch up.
If we are friends on instagram than we are good.
Do you have instagram?  If we are not friends...let me know how I can find you.  You can find me there: carotabi. 

Back to DC....there are a lot of runners in that town!
At any hour of the day you can be sure to see some in the streets, even in the crazy hot and humid weather and most of them did not even carry water....CRAZY folks.
Every time we would pass one I said the same thing "It should be ME".
I will not lie, it was very tempting to cheat and try to see if I could run.
But I didn't do it.

We did a lot of walking during our vacation.
If you have been to Washington you know that its a place to visit on foot.
We did not rent a car.
We walked 7 to 8 miles per day. 
My kids were awesome.  Zero complaining.
They walked like champs!
We went everywhere and we saw as much as we could see.

I wore my orthotics 4 out of the 5 days.  The first day, I was very sore.  I wore them for half of the day.   I felt the most pain in my right hip (the knee that is injured is the left one). 
For the rest of the days I wore them the whole time.  I did not have pain in my knees but my hip was sore and I also had back pain.  The PT did say I could have back pain.  Maybe I wore them for too many miles...I am not sure.  Going to PT tomorrow.

Yesterday I got on my treadmill.
Just to walk.
I figured it is OK, I walked every day last week so I should just keep it up....right?
I walked just 3 miles....I almost ran....almost...I took 2 steps...and I stopped.
I thought karma would come back to hit me in the butt....if I don't listen to the Dr and the PT.
I decided to follow orders and wait for the OK.
Last time I saw the PT, she said that I should be able to run one mile when I get back from my trip.  That is this week. 
I am nervous.
I want to run. I do.
I am afraid that it will still hurt.  I know I will be waiting for the pain to show up.
I know that I will not know if I am OK without actually trying.
I know I am not making any sense...I want to run but I don't want to try...
Here's the thing:  I want to run and know for sure it will be pain free.
What? Too much to ask?

Yesterday I had a DNS.
My second one.
It sucked.
This was supposed to be my PR race.
I was a little grumpy in the morning....

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

 WWII Memorial (Lincoln Memorial in the background)

No running diet sucks, DC here I come and my kids are pretty awesome

I am not a fan of the no-running diet,

It sucks.

It makes me very impatient and grouchy.

I am loosing fitness every time I blink.... That is the worst part.  After working so hard to get there...I will have to start all over again....

I do my PT religiously.

A lot of core work, balance and working on quads, calves, hips..

Not a lot of cardio... This is hard.  I went to my gym to swim over the weekend,  I did 60 laps. I cannot remember the last time I did that...

 I had the pool all to myself!....need a new bathing suit...this one is way too big...

As far as the pain goes...it is weird.  I still have pain that is for sure.  The weird part is that is moves.  It is not always on the same spot where it started; the inside of the joint.  Sometimes it hurts where the quad attached at the top of the knee.

I got my orthotics Wednesday.

I have decided to trust my PT on this.  I have read pros and cons on them.  I discussed my reservations with my PT and she explained why she thinks those could help me.  She have been wearing orthotics herself and it has helped her.

The plan is to wear them 1 hour the first day, 2 hours the next and so on...

Once I get used to wearing them we will add running.

1 mile at the time.

Yesterday was my second day wearing them.  It feels strange for now.  They are not causing me any pain so that is good.  The idea is to make my foot roll inside to relieve the pressure on my joint that is causing me pain.  My legs are like the image on the right.

We are leaving Saturday very early for our trip to Washington DC!

I am looking forward to this, it will be our first trip that is not to Canada.

The boys are super excited to go visit all the museums and monuments!

Speaking of my kids....

Yes yes bragging section of this post ...skip if it makes you barf....It's all good...

Summer vacation is here already.

School ended Tuesday.

Monday we had the third trimester awards ceremony and it was a good day to be the mom of those 2 boys who are MY sons!

I am so proud of them.

They did awesome this year .

Both are the the top reader of their grades.  At our school it is a big accomplishment.  Will has earned this award for the third year in a row now.  He got the second highest score in the whole school, only one 6th grader beat him.  That is pretty awesome.   They both got straight As in all subjects.  I could not ask for more from them.  They were both really sad that school was over.  I feel grateful that they love school so much, I was the exact same way.

This one, perfect attendance...it's great only because it meant they were both healthy all year.  I am not a supporter of this award because some parents send their sick kids to school just to get this piece of paper and I think it is ridiculous.  Will has received this 3 yrs in a row now....I get asked how do we do it....I always say the same: lots of fruits and veggies, going to bed EARLY, no sodas and Canadian genes! Ha Ha!!

Will's baseball team beat the odds and made it to the championship.  They lost in the big game but that's OK, it was huge that they won the game before that to get to the finale.  They were the underdog from day 1.  Go Dodgers!!

I received this fabulous shirt this week.
All the proceeds went for the victims of the Boston Marathon.
4.15.13
Never Forget.
Boston Strong.

 

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to all of you reading this to the end!!!
Good luck to everyone racing this weeken!

Special extra good luck to my friend Sandy who is running the Ojai Marathon !
GO SANDY!!!!!