June 7th - PT and ART how I have missed you

Dr. Karyn has returned from her cruise and I am glad to have her back.  My sessions with Tina we great, but it has been almost a week and a half since I have been to PT and since I can't follow directions and take it easy my knee was needing some work. 

Today is a scheduled rest day so I did my best to take it easy, besides my PT session and at home PT work.  Since I spent about 2.5 hours in the hammock and read an entire magazine I would say I was pretty successful. 

PT was very good today and we decided to drop my sessions to once a week.  This will allow me to keep seeing Dr. Karyn almost until Ironman Florida.  She worked her ART magic on the back of my knee again it feels pretty good again.  I was getting a little discouraged because it has been hurting a little more than usual, due to my hard-headedness I'm sure.  The surgeon lifted my spirits a bit on Tuesday when he told me not to worry too much about the pain at the back of my knee and that it should start to diminish as I get more active. 

Dr. Karyn is pretty excited about getting to go-ahead to run, but she does want me to start much more slowly than I did this week.  Although my 1/2 mile to 1/2 mile ratio worked pretty well she wants me to dial it back a little more and focus more on time rather than distance.  Her instructions were to follow the Couch to 5k podcasts for the next several runs and fill the rest of my scheduled walk/run time with walking since that is how I am going to have to tackle Lake Placid.  It's a pretty big hit to my ego to follow a training program that is essentially less mileage and time than my normal warmups, but it's all about the ultimate goal and getting to the IMLP finish line without extra injury.

I did get a new exercise to add to my at home routine.  I now have to spend 2 minutes hopping from one foot to the other to mimic the running motion while focusing on making sure my knee doesn't collapse inward.  I look pretty ridiculous pretending to run in front of a full length mirror, but I'm sure Kelly will get a kick out of it.