Marathon! 13 Months Later

I was able to do a marathon with no issues relating to my ACL 13 months after my surgery! Feel free to read about it here.

1 Year Down!

It has been exactly 1 year since I had my ACL surgery, and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to reflect back on the past year! Things have gone really well for me, I couldn't be more happy with how things have gone! All of the doctors, physical therapists, family, friends, and coaches/instructors made it all possible.

Because of this I have been able to:

• Bike multiple century bike rides
• Bike 500K in 24 hours with over 20,000 feet climbed
• Run numerous runs/races including a half marathon and the Warrior Dash
• Participate in my first mountain bike race
• Do a 6 hour mountain bike race
• Backpack 10+ miles in a day with a heavy pack

And now I'm set to do my first marathon in 23 days! And interestingly enough I have had some issues with tightness of my achilles and some IT Band issues all on my right leg, NOT on the one that I had the ACL surgery! Another item of note, I would say that the hardest thing that I did this past year in regards to my accomplishments was being able to pass my physio therapy test for me to be able to start running! I had to train even my good leg to be able to pass that!

Anyways, I'll keep posting here if there are things relating to this, but I would like to thank everyone that has helped me with this in the past year, it is been a tremendous amount of help that I have received, thank you!

6 Months and Completing Jump Training

Well I have just passed the 6 month mark after I had ACL surgery. Honestly the time has really flown by. Not to say that it seemed like forever until I could bike or swim or run, but looking back it has really gone by quickly. My knee is in great condition and the doctor has released me to do whatever I want. Just if I do anything like basketball, tennis, ski, etc. I should wear a brace. My knee feels a little sore now and then, I've been working on running more and increasing slowly so I know how much I can do.

When I first started running I ran too much and was sore. So now I'm working my way up, running walking for 20 minutes, and increasing the time that I run. This way I can figure out when I get sore, or perhaps not at all if I progress well.

My knee is still a little stiff at times, so I make sure and stretch it regularly. I am almost done with the final week of the jump training that my physical therapist assigned me to do. After that I'm going to start with some vertical leap training to increase the strength of my legs more before I start playing basketball again. Feel like if I go back being stronger than ever then that will be good for making sure I don't re-injure things!

Jump Training!

Now I begin jump training, where I begin to train my body to jump and land properly, so when I do begin doing sport activities again my body's muscle memory will be used to doing things the right way. It also gets the body used to jumping again. Apparently you need to do an activity 1,000 times before your body will re-learn something correctly! The jump training is 6 weeks long, and I will begin that next week. It's a pretty tough set of exercises, but now it's both an aerobic sort of workout and also a strength training. Gonna help me get whipped into shape for sure!

4 Months!

I'm at 4 months since the surgery today! Very happy about that! Though I will have to admit that my knee is a little stiff. Probably from the running I did the other day. But overall feeling good. Biking has been my saving grace since I can't really do running all that much. And Saturday and Sunday I do the Tour de Cure where I will be biking 80 miles each day! That will be a good test of my knee! We'll see how I fare. I'll post here how things go!

Don't Over Do it!!! Do as I say, not as I do!

So even though I'm past 3 months after I had my surgery, it's probably not a great idea to overdo the biking too much... I may have done that this past weekend. The doctors advice was to increase the distance that I do slowly so that I know what my limits are. I guess increasing my 20 miles a ride is too much...

I had done 20 and even 40 miles in a day with no problem. This past weekend I did 2+ hours on the stationary bike on Friday, thin 50 miles on Saturday, and then 70 miles on Sunday. Then I did a blistering fast ride on Monday, very hilly, up Mt. Bonel, and after that my knee was sore afterwards. Always felt fine when I was biking, but felt stiff and sore afterwards.

So now I'm taking it easy this week. No more long distance for me until I get to the Tour de Cure at the end of May.

Running!

So about 1 week ago I was able to start running! I had to pass a gruling test to be able to demonstrate to the doctor and physical therapist that I was ready, but I did! Here's what I had to do:

1. 3 minutes of one legged squats with a bungee cord pulling me down. Up one second, down the next.
2. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me forwards.
3. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me backwards.
4. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the right.
5. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the left.

So I was given the clear to start jogging. I was told that running on the treadmill initially was good to reduce impact on the knee. I then later ran on a trail and that felt good. I was also told to not run too long without taking a break and walking. So when I ran on the trail I made sure and walked down the hills to reduce the hard impact on the knee. Feels great so far. And of course the last bit of advice given to me was to stop running if there was any pain in the knee. So happy to be back and able to run after about 10 months! I'm now looking forward to being able to push myself harder and run further!

At this point biking long distances is not a problem and I have been able to do about 40 miles at a very fast pace without having any issues.