April 2018 Monthly Running Challenge

rheddmobile

Hey everyone! As expected, no running miles for April. But at least my leg looks almost normal today. I've been sort of reading the thread off and on - just wanted to shout out to @eponine02 who is having a tough time too - hoping brighter days are ahead for you soon!

So, I hate it when it turns out I know more than doctors. I mean, it's nice to be vindicated in the end but I'd rather be wrong and them right, so I get the right treatment on the front end, ya know? In this case when my leg started swelling I went to the ER to be sure I didn't have a blood clot, and was diagnosed with a Baker's cyst, which I quickly looked up on the internet and noticed I had all the symptoms of a RUPTURED Baker's cyst - I had had a bulge behind my knee which stung sharply then immediately reduced, followed by severe swelling in the calf, and my calf and ankle showed pockets of fluid which looked almost like veins on the ultrasound. So I asked the ER doctor about it, and he said there was zero chance of it having ruptured and said, "It doesn't work like that." In addition he told me I could run and lift on my knee. (Which is wrong advice, according to everyone else in the medical universe.) So I did that, for two days, meanwhile the thing became more painful and so swollen I was worried about compartment syndrome.

Next I tried the orthopedist recommended to me, and couldn't get in because of the holiday weekend. Finally got in to see him and his recommendation was to never run again, definitely don't lift weights, and take up swimming. He seemed not to be able to understand that the massive tightness of fluid on my leg was fluid and kept telling me to relax my muscles. He didn't even look at the ultrasound results, but ran a series of x rays because he was convinced I must have arthritis in my knee if I had a Baker's cyst. X rays showed my bones are perfect, no arthritis. He said I should stop running permanently because I might someday get arthritis. I told him I didn't intend to give up running, and wanted to know how to fix my leg so I could get back to it, so he turned to my husband and started talking to him instead. At that point the session was a lost cause, but my husband - who is a good one - did successfully keep me from leaping across the room and eating his brains by saying, "I'm not quite sure why you're talking to me, she's right there." In the end this guy said he couldn't feel any Baker's cyst so it must be a small one but he would refer me to the guy who drained them so he could tell me there was nothing to drain.

Cue two weeks of actual torture. Not cool at all. Every day my leg was a quarter inch larger in all directions, more painful, and less bendy. I do want to say something good about the appointment nurses who went above and beyond to try to get me a slot with the sports medicine guy and managed to fit me in two days early.

So the sports medicine guy pops up the ultrasound, says, "Come here and look at this, this is the biggest Baker's cyst I've ever seen! Oh, it's definitely been ruptured for some time. I can't believe you can walk on this." And proceeds to extract four of those pee-container sized cups of synovial fluid from the knee and the back of my leg.

All would be well but then he gave me a steroid shot, claiming it would raise my blood glucose a few points for about two days. Well... two studies on knee injections in diabetics and a bunch of folks on diabetes forums say it's more like take emergency insulin for three weeks to a month while your blood glucose goes into the 400 - 500 range. It can take several days to know how badly it's going to hit. So wish me luck. I would not have agreed to the injection if I had read about it first.

However, this morning my leg is almost normal looking, which is nice. Unfortunately the pressure inside my knee seems to have torn up everything - it's way more noisy than before it was so swollen, all the ligaments are stretched so it's unstable, and even my Achilles' tendon is borked because my ankle was so swollen. The lack of treatment for three weeks resulted in what seems like serious damage.

I feel like I should maybe report the ER doctor to somebody but don't know how to go about it. I have had this same ER doctor three times and each time he has dangerously misdiagnosed me. The first was a ruptured eardrum with an ear infection, which he claimed was neither ruptured nor infected, but the second time he almost killed me by sending me home with an ovarian torsion which had to be removed by emergency surgery after the dead ovary made me very sick. I asked for another doctor this time, but it's a small hospital and he was the only doctor on call that night. Does anyone out there have advice on who I would contact about something like this?

Sorry for writing a book - I really miss running and now that I have some hope of getting back to it eventually I will read and catch up on everyone's exploits!

kgirlhart

@rheddmobile Dang! What a terrible experience for you! I'm glad you were finally correctly diagnosed and hope the BG gets back to normal soon. I don't know who you need to contact about this, but that ER doc definitely needs to be held responsible for this.

apricotqueen1

10.28 km this evening, finally getting in a longer run for this month. Still grateful for that nice weather!
That brings me well over the halfway point, for 57 out of 100 km.

weat0043

@rheddmobile That really sucks, hopefully you heal up soon! You can probably contact the director of the hospital or the college of physicians... Or ask the receptionist, she should be able to direct you to the person in charge.

Mari33a

Hi Folks,

I've been AWOL since early February but back again. I missed a full 6 weeks running and then at end of last month tried to ease myself back. I've lots of cach up reading to do and while I don't post much I missed being part of the fun!

12 Apr 3.81 miles

Elise4270

@rheddmobile Wow! So glad you finally had someone capable to take care of you. Hopefully everything will calm down and be back to "normal" soon. I have crepitis in my knee, my doc says it's age. It is the one with the ITB issue, so I don't doubt its related. Hopefully yours also will be just a noisy battle scar.

What to do? Complain. Online reviews, write letter to the hospital board, maybe even contact the medical board in your state. (ETA I'd put it all in writing). Reminds me of White Chicks, have a BF and write a letter!

We have a horrible hospital here too. It's known as "Murdering Mercy". My road id says "take me to Baylor Dallas". So maybe next time, you could make the trip to a larger hospital? Don't mess with the yokles?

I do hope the steroid doesn't wreck your BG, and reduces the chance of permanent injury to the soft tissue.

skippygirlsmom

Thanks everyone. I planned to run today but I’ve had painters at my house all week they are removing the popcorn ceiling and painting. Plus about a mile from my house a fugitive is loose. He’s wanted for murder in Florida so probably not a good idea to run alone in the dark.

Elise4270

skippygirlsmom wrote: »

Thanks everyone. I planned to run today but I’ve had painters at my house all week they are removing the popcorn ceiling and painting. Plus about a mile from my house a fugitive is loose. He’s wanted for murder in Florida so probably not a good idea to run alone in the dark.

Where's the [oh *kitten*] button?

lporter229

skippygirlsmom wrote: »

Thanks everyone. I planned to run today but I’ve had painters at my house all week they are removing the popcorn ceiling and painting. Plus about a mile from my house a fugitive is loose. He’s wanted for murder in Florida so probably not a good idea to run alone in the dark.

Yeah, let me fix that for you...

greyparks206

Well, I feel like an idiot, but it finally occurred to me why my legs were aching yesterday. I forgot to put my PowerStep insoles into the dress shoes I wore to work yesterday. I realized what I’d done as soon as I went to put my shoes on this morning. Argh. Such a blonde move.

The good news is, since I remembered to wear my insoles to work today, my legs felt 100% better. I still took it easy on my run this afternoon. I did 40 minutes of walk/easy jog intervals for 2.75 total miles (2.0 miles jogging). I felt like I could have gone a little further but decided to err on the side of caution. Tomorrow is a yoga only day, and Saturday will be my last long(ish) run before my 5k on the 21st.

April goal: 40 miles
Today: 2.0 miles
Total: 15.5 miles

T1DCarnivoreRunner

7.53 miles today

garygse

@7lenny7 Absolutely agree about seeing @Stoshew71's posts on the physiology of running; a wealth of solid info that can help just about anyone train more effectively!
@rheddmobile Ouch, so sorry to hear about your terrible experience with the doctor's misdiagnosis, and I hope you can now start your recovery properly and in earnest.
@greyparks206 Glad to hear you resolved the issue you were having!

---

Today was the last run of my mini-taper, as tomorrow I'll be taking a complete day of rest while I indulge in some more mac and cheese that I've hidden from the kids. Thanks for the well-wishes for my HM race on Saturday; I'm excited to see what a difference a year of running has made and how things compare to when I ran the same race last year!

02 - 15.39
03 - 13.55
04 - 15.21
05 - 13.38
06 - 31.56
09 - 15.28
10 - 8.50
11 - 8.36
12 - 8.52

Total: 129.75 / 280 miles

greyparks206

@garygse Thanks! And good luck on Saturday!

PastorVincent

@rheddmobile yuck!! Hopefully, that is behind you know and you can work on improving!

PastorVincent

04/01/18 - 8 Miles - 9:59 Pace
04/02/18 - Rest
04/03/18 - 10 miles - 9:27 Pace
04/04/18 - 10 miles @ 4% grade and 7:43 pace
04/05/18 - 0
04/06/18 - 0
04/07/18 - 11.7 miles - 2 races and a bit more
04/08/18 - 0
04/09/18 - 0
04/10/18 - 12.1 miles @ 9:27 pace
04/11/18 - 12.1 miles @ 9:00 pace
04/12/18 - 11 miles @ 9:00 pace

Big Hairy Audacious Goal: Sub 4 hours in Pittsburgh 2018!

Official Marathon PR: 4:11:28

Next Races (more as I find them):

05/06/18 - Pittsburgh Marathon - aiming for sub four hours.
05/12/18 - Glacier Ridge 50k Trail Ultra (I must hate myself)

2020 - Disney World Dopey! (if can raise funds)

PastorVincent

SOOOO Today's run was a bit more entertaining then it needed to be. I was running the road by work, a road that I have run 3-4 times a week for the past three years. A road that literally (not figuratively) 100's of other runners use. We have even had 5k races on it.

So running down this road wearing my black UA Heatgear T-Shirt, and my black UA Heatgear shorts and my black UA Heatgear socks with my black UA Ignitor 2 polarized sunglass like I have done pretty much all the time... and two sheriff trucks stop me.

They pull me aside get my name/etc and tell me that someone called... get this... someone called up and reported "a man in black running."

I was like "dude, you for real" and he was like "it was just probably someone new." I wanted to get all smart and be like "yeah, but are YOU new?" I mean it was pretty darn obvious that a guy running down the street in work out clothes and a carrying a water bottle is you now probably just out for a run? But they had guns, and I have long hair so I know better than to do that. Besides the poor guy probably has to write up a full report about how he handled the man in black running down the street. Ah well.

And yes, I plan to run that same route tomorrow, cept I might add a black headband.

PastorVincent

Stoshew71 wrote: »

PastorVincent wrote: »

In my case I currently do runs as far as 2 hours I do with no fuel. I can do that at my goal MP without any issues. I have done half marathons at race pace with no fuel.

I have run in the 17-20 mile range without fuel

And that should be no problem.

MP pace (since it takes you more than an hour to run one) is then way slower than lactate threshold pace, which means that you should be in the aerobic zone. Thus you're able to burn both fat and carbs the entire way through.

I also assume that it takes you more than an hour to do a HM, which then again suggests running slower than LTP. Thus you're still in the aerobic zone and can still burn both fat and carbs.

17-20 miles again, most likely took you more than an hour, so you're going slower than LTP, and are able to use both carbs and fat.

The fact that you're able to run 20 miles without refueling with no perceived problems suggests that you have trained your body very well to use fat for fuel. That or you are running too slow and would benefit from picking up the pace for a little bit on that long run. Which is where the Gatorade or Gu could come in handy. Mixing a mile (or half mile) interval halfway into that long run a few times at a much faster pace. Something a little bit faster than your LTP. If you feel too sluggish to do that, then take in some Gatorade or a Gu packet about 20-30 minutes before you do the intervals.

I do not have an official half time (well, not counting Shamrock, that was just a bad day) but I am guessing based on training runs I can probably do just under two hours for half. Probably right around 1:50. I regularly run in the 2 to 2.5 hour range with no fuel and no issues. Not sure I could push all the way into the 4 hours of a marathon though. To be fair though, I have not tried.

BruinsGal_91

PastorVincent wrote: »

SOOOO Today's run was a bit more entertaining then it needed to be. I was running the road by work, a road that I have run 3-4 times a week for the past three years. A road that literally (not figuratively) 100's of other runners use. We have even had 5k races on it.

So running down this road wearing my black UA Heatgear T-Shirt, and my black UA Heatgear shorts and my black UA Heatgear socks with my black UA Ignitor 2 polarized sunglass like I have done pretty much all the time... and two sheriff trucks stop me.

They pull me aside get my name/etc and tell me that someone called... get this... someone called up and reported "a man in black running."

I was like "dude, you for real" and he was like "it was just probably someone new." I wanted to get all smart and be like "yeah, but are YOU new?" I mean it was pretty darn obvious that a guy running down the street in work out clothes and a carrying a water bottle is you now probably just out for a run? But they had guns, and I have long hair so I know better than to do that. Besides the poor guy probably has to write up a full report about how he handled the man in black running down the street. Ah well.

And yes, I plan to run that same route tomorrow, cept I might add a black headband.

But I always wear a black headband! I hope those cops don't come round my neck of the woods. Though I am wearing white socks, so I might get away with it.

alc649

Got 2 miles in tonight. It was humid..im used to running in colder weather. It was tough but i didnt quit.

fitoverfortymom

Thought about an easy 3, but there's some tightness in my calf and hamstring. Not willing to risk it, so settled for a hearty jaunt during lunch to work out the twitchies. Will probably do the same tonorrow.