Hurts so good!

After weeks of being well behaved and doing Physical Therapy and very short easy runs (2-3 miles), I finally got the green light to increase! I am taking a boot camp so I can get my whole body back in shape. 6 months down and my body is NOT the same. I went to see my PT after my first workout and the only restriction I have right now is to cut back on squats and the obvious - if it hurts, stop. He said to stop for a minute or two and then I should be OK to start back up. My knee has been bothering me and getting swollen (where my tendons come into my knee started hurting around the time I started PT.. probably due to being off and then all the PT). I find it odd that only my left knee hurts since I have been very good about anything I do for PT on my left leg, I do on my right. The pain in my leg is so minimal!! It is still there, they do the Graston technique on it along with the knee area.

I have been doing speed work (very short workouts) on the Alter-G. For any that don't know what an Alter-G is... it is a treadmill where you can alter gravity. As you may suspect, it was created by NASA. It was created so those on the space station can run and do workouts.. so they add gravity, where I remove it so I can run without pain. Now, when I was first injured, I tried running on an Alter-G at 20% gravity and even that was so painful I could not go more than a minute... so that just tells you how far I've come. Right now I'm doing speed work at 75% gravity - 1:30 at 6 minute per mile pace and 1 minute at 8:30 pace for as long as I can get on the alter-g (there are other patients there, so I usually get 15 minutes). I do my warm up on a stationary bike, so that doesn't eat into my time! :)

Boot camp has been great. I know I don't have to start my Boston training today, but I will need to start soon and the day I start, I need to be in some sort of shape. I asked and was approved for a 6 week boot camp to get my whole body moving again. EVERYTHING hurts, but I'm so glad to be hurting that I keep getting the lyrics "Hurts so good.. come on baby make it hurt so good..." stuck in my head.