I am finally feeling it. The 'it' being closer to running again. Yay!! I am finally healing and feeling like I am getting stronger too. Working with my PT has brought a better understanding of my body and it's particular structural issues, if you will.
Mainly, I've discovered that 1) My core is not strong. At all. 2) The lack of engaged muscles deep in my abdomen and pelvis allowed my pelvis to shift slightly with the continual force that running was putting on it. 3) The miss-aligned pelvis and lack of core strength caused an imbalance and overuse of the left leg, which led to the injury.
To 'fix' this, we've been focusing on core strength. I've been doing a set of exercises at home that are targeting the deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. I already feel more balanced and stronger. It's been really helpful to learn how each part of your body is engaged while running and we've been working to stabilize the core so that when my body is balanced on one leg (which it always is while running), I am in line and my muscles are engaged properly.
We've started incorporating walking back into the picture. I will be spending the month of December walking to build back up to being able to run again, likely after Christmas. Boo ya! I was assigned a 3-5 mile walk over the last couple days and it was so nice to get out there, listen to music and just let my mind wander. Oh how I've missed that so much.
The plan is to continue PT twice a week through December. In January, we'll go down to once a week as I am able to start building my base back up. A few weeks after I am consistently running again, we'll go to once every other week for a couple weeks and then as needed. But once I am running again, she is going to give me a pretty detailed plan on building the base and smartly increasing my mileage back to where it was. I will also be focusing on being more well rounded so that I can keep my body healthy to keep doing what I really love. Strength training, yoga and incorporating warm ups and cool downs, which I've never really been good at doing. All of that will hopefully keep me injury free and prevent a relapse of this awful injury.
Yay for progress!!
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