Training Once Again

I began phys­i­cal ther­apy (PT) today. It’s a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in my recov­ery from a her­ni­ated disc and back surgery. It means I can do more than just walk, tar­get­ing the core mus­cles that will be nec­es­sary to regain full func­tion of my left leg and foot.

It was the first time I had seen my phys­i­cal ther­a­pist (PT) since July. We stopped the ther­apy once the deci­sion had been made to have surgery. I was eager to hear her assess­ment of my con­di­tion, espe­cially since she hadn’t seen me since I could barely move. While I feel I have made some sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in the past two weeks, my rec­ol­lec­tion of my sit­u­a­tion – or any­thing, for that mat­ter – before then is all rather hazy (some­thing I attribute to the com­bi­na­tion of Vicodin and pain – and yes, unfor­tu­natley, those two are not mutu­ally exclu­sive when it comes to nerve injuries).

The first thing my phys­i­cal ther­a­pist said when she saw me walk in this morn­ing was, “Wow, you’ve come a long way!” That was music to my ears (and back). After catch­ing her up on my surgery and recov­ery activ­i­ties to date – mainly walk­ing – she said she wants to start me off slowly. Specif­i­cally, I am to do just three stretches each day. Any more than that and she fears my nerve will react and we’ll end up tak­ing steps back­wards. She does expect, though, that we’ll be able to increase move­ment and exer­cises soon enough as the nerve con­tin­ues to heal.

She explained that a nerve that has been severely dam­aged take time to heal, usu­ally 3 – 6 months. I was relieved to hear her say that con­stricted will often take 3 – 6. Not  because I am fond of extreme con­di­tions, but rather, because I was begin­ning to won­der if I was not going to have a full recov­ery (the mind plays out worst-case-scenarios with any bit of neg­a­tive data it can get a hold of). The spe­cific time­frame also helps me remem­ber to be patient as the road to recov­ery is a long one.

After she showed me the exer­cises and stretches I am to do, I mus­tered up the energy to ask a ques­tion I thought I didn’t want to hear the answer to. I hes­i­tantly men­tioned that I had my eye on a 10k trail race in Decem­ber. I cringed, wait­ing for her to tell me there was no way in hell she was going to let me run any time this year.

How­ever, much to my sur­prise, my phys­i­cal ther­a­pist said run­ning the race wasn’t out of the ques­tion! That’s fan­tas­tic news. There isn’t another 5k or 10k trail run nearby until Feb­ru­ary, and I’ve found that hav­ing a race to set my sights on helps me plan and con­tinue to train.

I am excited to be to put a plan together for a real race. It will be a rather unique plan, though, as it will have to include sev­eral weeks of walk­ing and other exer­cis­ing before I can even get to ground zero. But a plan that starts with walk­ing yet leads to run­ning is a whole lot bet­ter than no plan at all. Plus, it will help me feel like a real run­ner again. For the first time in 5 months I will be able to say I’m train­ing for a race – the unof­fi­cial req­ui­site con­ver­sa­tion starter to prove you are a real run­ner and not just a want-to-be, I’ve discovered.

The race I will start train­ing for tomor­row is put on by the Pacific Coast Trail Runs orga­ni­za­tion and will occur within Hud­dart State Park in beau­ti­ful Wood­side, CA, on Decem­ber 5, 2009. It’s called the Wood­side Trail Run, and in addi­tion to the 10k, offers the dis­tances of 17k, 35k, or 50k . It’s a beau­ti­ful time of the year in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia and should be a blast. It would be great to see you out there!

So, I need to pull a 10-week train­ing pro­gram together in the next cou­ple of days to pre­pare myself to suc­cess­fully run 10 kilo­me­ters the first week in Decem­ber. I used the train­ing pro­gram on Runner’s World’s web­site to cre­ate a cus­tomized plan in the Spring when I was train­ing for the SF Half. But I’ve lost faith in Runner’s World of late so find myself back to square one. The Jeff Gal­loway walk/run pro­gram makes a lot of sense, but I don’t know.

What do you think?

• Do you have a favorite train­ing program?
• Can you give me any advice to help me pre­pare for a 10k trail run over just 10 weeks?