The Road from Injury to Recovery to Racing
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
By: Rebecca Little, Charm City Run Open Race Team Member
In April 2022 my friend Katie and I were training to run St. Michaels Running Festival. I was training for the half, Katie for the 10k. We would meet up Thursdays and Saturdays for a run and to just catch up on life. This particular Thursday, we were doing a 2.5 mile route. I planned to run it twice for 5 miles. Katie planned to run it once. Everything started out okay but about 1.75 miles in, I was starting to feel some pain. I was dealing with IT band issues at the time so this wasn’t unusual. We stopped our run and walked the rest of the way back to our cars. We parted ways and I headed to the store to pick up a couple of groceries.
When I got to the store, as I was standing looking at bread, I shifted all of my weight to my left leg and BAM. I was going to be sick. A wave of pain shot through my leg. I actually felt like a cartoon character who was seeing stars. I stood there for a moment afraid to move because I didn’t know if my leg was even going to cooperate. I finally was able to get back to my car and drive home. As soon as I was in my house, I laid down and called my husband. Something was wrong.
I was able to get an appointment with my physical therapist on Monday. He initially thought that it was a flare-up with my IT band but as the session went on, he was starting to have some doubts. In what became a month and a half long process of PT visits, doctor visits, tests, and trying to figure out what was what going on, my mind was swirling. Some days I felt fine, some days I couldn’t stand for more than 15 minutes. I missed running the St. Michaels Half, I missed the start of marathon training. I was starting to feel like they would never figure out what happened.
Then I got the MRI results: a torn meniscus and a synovial meniscal cyst. I was put in touch with a surgeon. I had a telehealth visit with him on June 15th. I was given the option of the surgeon trying to repair my meniscus or removing the injured part. A repair meant recovery was no weight bearing for six months and wearing a brace. A removal was immediate weight bearing and a six week recovery time. I told my surgeon that I would leave it to his judgment if the tissue was even good enough to repair. That was it. I was on the books for surgery on June 22nd.
The surgery itself went well. The surgeon removed about 20% of my meniscus, the entirety of the synovial cyst, and trimmed the fat pad in my knee due to impingement from the knee cap. They had me up to practice walking on crutches before I left the hospital. Much to the nurse’s dismay, this was not my first rodeo on crutches and I was told multiple times to slow down because I may slip. I got home and was told to follow up in 10 days to get my stitches out. So there I sat, going stir crazy in my house just waiting for the all-clear.
When the stitches came out, they gave me the go ahead to start physical therapy. Three times a week for the first month and then taper off from there. It was horrible. Things that were so easy at the beginning of the year felt nearly impossible. This wasn’t a major surgery, so why did riding a bike feel so hard? Why did squatting with 5 pound weights feel like I was trying to lift a 400 pound boulder? Why did this feel so tough? Because recovery from injury and surgery is no walk in the park. No matter how minor or major it may be. It takes work. About 4 weeks post surgery I remember sitting on my bed after a particularly bad day and feeling so defeated. I said “this surgery was the worst decision I have ever made.” I thought that I would never feel back to normal. I was wrong.
Six weeks after surgery, it all started to come together. There was still some swelling in my knee but the discomfort that I felt was resolved with some quality time with an ice pack. I felt strong after my physical therapy sessions rather than exhausted. I could take walks without feeling like my knee was going to buckle. By the first week of August, I was cleared to start running. Short bursts, 30 seconds to a minute at a time under the watchful eye of my physical therapist. After a week he wrote me a program to start running by myself at home. He suggested trying running on the treadmill so that if there was pain I could stop but not be far from home. I was excited. I missed running. I missed the time to myself that running afforded me. I know my friends and family were relieved because I was major grump when I couldn’t go for a run. The first day I tried running by myself, I went for about 30 seconds and stopped. I remember thinking “what if I get hurt again?” When I saw my physical therapist three days later, he told me that it was normal to feel apprehensive about getting back into running after what happened. Then he made me run for five minutes non-stop. That doesn’t sound like much but to me, in that moment, it was daunting. I did it though. I got through. It was what I needed at that moment and it started my momentum.
I started using a training program. I was looking to run the 5k at BARCstoberfest. I figured even if it was a tough run that I could look at all the dogs and their costumes and that seemed like good enough motivation for me! The runs felt good. I felt no pain. I felt strong. I ran my first race post surgery on October 29th, 2022. It wasn’t the best run I have ever had, but it didn’t need to be. It was the start of a new running journey for me. By Thanksgiving, I was cleared from physical therapy and had claimed my 2023 deferrals for the races I couldn’t complete in 2022.
One day in December, my training plan called for a 5 mile run. I decided to run the route I ran that day in April when my meniscus tore. I did it. Pain free, care-free…just free. It may have taken seven and a half months to complete, but that 5 mile run was finally done.
