Mile Long Legs

Entering into my 4th week of physio with my new, totally awesome physiotherapist Katie, I had to ask the question “you want me to flex what?”.  Katie laughed and replied, “you know, like Kegels”.  Cue awkward pause followed by awkward laughs.  My response to her  “is this some sort of punishment for making obnoxious Kegel jokes last night?”.  Nope, in fact Katie was 110% business, she wants me to flex my pelvic floor like there is no tomorrow.  Yep, I went there.  Okay, I realize this may be TMI for some of you, if this is the case it’s probably time to check out now and go watch a cat video on YouTube, because I’m  a “tell-it-like-it-is” kind of girl, so I will not spare you the gory details. 🙂

To answer the questions some of you may be thinking; YES, I am still fighting this ridiculous ankle sprain from over 8 months ago. And YES, I’m back to physio yet again.  And YES, somehow the crazy Kegel-type exercises tie into the master plan of correcting my imbalances and fixing my ankle (which I’ll get into in just a sec).  As you may have noticed, I decided to make a change and try out a new PT since I wasn’t making much progress with my prior one.  The game plan this time is a lot different and I am really loving it so far and I’m already seeing big improvements every week, which to me is PURE GOLD!  I’m doing my best to stay as optimistic and positive as I possibly can, don’t get me wrong, things are not all smiles and cupcakes.  Over the past couple months I’ve had to miss out on a lot of training runs, a half marathon that I’d been looking forward to for months, and I’ve come to my breaking point a number of times, and shed a lot of frustrated tears, but lucky for me I have an AMAZING support system and red wine to get me through this little bump in the road.

So just to quickly outline what kind of torture my PT has been putting me through (I’m kidding Katie, you’re awesome and a ball breaker and I wouldn’t want it any other way).  We’re really working my entire body to help adjust, correct and align all that is “grumpy” (yes that’s a medical term) with my body, from my toes to my hips, to my back to my pelvis.  She’s done wonders with massaging out my nasty tendon in my right leg and I now have little-to-no post-tib tendinitis pain.

I have a full arsenal of exercises *YAY* (did you feel that sarcasm) that I get to do every night, some very frustrating like toe slides and arch flexing, and some feel-good ones like psoas stretching, and some awesome ones where I get to look super cool and stand on a pillow with my eyes closed…no really I do!  And just to be clear, my “Kegel” type exercises are not for the traditional use of Kegels, for me it’s about core strengthening and activating specific abs that I’ve let get lazy and become under active over the course of becoming a runner.  This will in turn help stabilize my core and spine, which will help everything in the grand scheme of things.

So there you have it, my ankle update as of now.  The goal of course is to think long term, I’m passionate about running and I want to be able to enjoy it for as many years as I possibly can.  I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to finish my first full marathon that is quickly approaching and still be able to walk afterwards! 🙂 Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go flex my pelvic floor.

xoxo, MLL