Every Session, I Run More

I'm combining both Monday and Wednesday's physical therapy sessions in one post. The biggest thing I noticed is that my sessions are getting tougher (i.e., I'm really sore afterwards and one or two days later) and I'm adding more run time.

Monday
On Monday, the only thing that I did new during this session was Jeff took the BOSU thing and turned it over. He told me to stand on it with one foot (of course, it was my bad foot). I had to balance on my bad foot and try to control the stability. If I get to out of whack, then I can put my other foot down or grab the handles on the stairs. It took awhile and it was super hard, but eventually, I started to get it under control. Even Jeff commented that I'm getting the hang of it, but man, did my ankle hurt afterwards. He then took me to the machine again to practice my dot training (that's what I'm calling it now). He asked me what I wanted to do and I said the maze, of course. He commented that I have some kindof vendetta against this maze thing. I did; I wanted to get better. Well, my highest score was 33%. I guess that was better than -4 the previous week.

So, now it was time for the treadmill. I was excited to get on this thing, because I wanted to push myself and really work to start running again. I was able to do 3 minutes on 4.5 speed (no incline). I burned somehwere between 20 and 30 calories. I was surprisingly winded, but a lady commented about how she was impressed that I could do that much and not look bad. I told her that I was in fact winded right now. I mentioned to her that I was training for a half marathon when I got injured and now I'm doing this stuff to get better. She was intrigued about the fact that I was doing a half marathon.

This other worker hooked me up to the compression therapy machine and asked what pressure do I usually have it set (oh and I found out that 30 was the temp and not the pressure setting). Jeff told her that I was medium and if I go any higher, than I will kill him. This is true; however, I noticed at the end that I could have had higher pressure. I really didn't feel it as so tight as usual. So, either my ankle is getting stronger or I'm not really sure.

Wednesday
On Wednesday, I had a rough day personally, but I was ready to take it out on my ankle. Jeff put me back on the BOSU and it didn't last long. He said that I was getting the hang of it too easily. I was, but it's still hard to control it. So, he handed me the 2 lb medicine ball to stand on, while I threw it at the net. Only this time, he put a 3 in pad thing to stand on for balance. Oh my, this was hard...so very hard. I barely lasted 10 minutes (if that at all). I had to slowly throw the ball and then catch my balance each time. Jeff noticed that I was having issues and took me off. Wow! My ankle was hurting some fierce. He gave me the balance board thing and told me to sit down so that I can do this and take a break before I moved on to something else.

Afterwards, he took me to the machine so that I could once again conquer that stupid maze thing. This time, I got as high as 37% twice. Only Jeff said that he would count 39% since I lost it on the last dot dropping me to 37%. He took me to the walking area so that I could go back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth) with walking on my toes and my heels. I did this for a while since Jeff got distracted with another patient. Finally, he remembered me and pointed me to the treadmill. He turned it on for me and left me to control speed so he could work on his other patient (I noticed it was the same lady as Monday that talked to me about my running). I set the speed to 5.0 this time and had a goal for 5 minutes. And I so did 5 minutes burning 60 something calories. Since Jeff was still distracted, I noticed that I was only at 0.3 miles. I figured I would just walk the rest to at least get 0.5 miles. I burned a total of 72 calories, ran 5 minutes at 5.0 speed, and walked the rest of the time at 2.5 to make a total of 0.5 miles. I was so happy. My ankle didn't feel shaky and I felt better about my running. I started to get in the zone, but I was certainly winded and sweaty. I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to run that half marathon at the end of April.

He hooked me up to the compression therapy and I told him that I think we could increase the pressure since it didn't feel quite as tight on Monday. He looked at me funny and asked if I was sure. Oh, I was sure. And even after the thing beeped it's completion, I felt like I could have done more.

So, yay for me on my week of finally running. I can't wait to run more and more and more. Next week, I don't go to physical therapy, because Jeff is gone. He recommended that I do things on my own to see how it goes. I think I'm gonna try to get a mile in next week...maybe.