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Congratulations Chris, pretty good pace, nice to see that parkrun has a toehold in the USA. I’ve just passed 12 years of parkrunning, Saturday was #459 so another year should get me the coveted blue shirt. Also did a test event today for a new city parkrun – dead flat, wide tarmac, no excuses – so hoping to be back under 24 mins again soon..
Cheers,
Pete
Hi Ian – the suspense is killing me – how are you doing and are you back running yet? As an incentive I shall let slip that I managed to race my first half-marathon for 11 years and win the V70 category in 1:53 last month, having set a bionic 5k PB of 23:39 only the week before. My ceramic hip is five and a half years old, I also have an 8 year old metal resurfacing, both times I was jogging carefully around the 8 week mark but I have only this year started concentrating on speedwork. Time for an update please!
Hi Sarah – good to see a positive attitude to getting back to normal. If you want more inspiration, I have at the age of 71 just beaten a 6 year old PB at my local parkrun and the following weekend taken the V70 prize at the half-marathon through our city. My ceramic hip is 5.5 years old and my metal resurfacing has its 8th anniversary this week. Let us know how you get on in your journey back!
Cheers,
Pete
Hi Ian,
Great story, glad you found the solution in time (shame about the state of the NHS waiting lists though, my hips were covered by BUPA fortunately). You will be back to jogging then running before you know it, enjoy the process of continuous improvement – I recorded all my activities using Garmin watches so I have a permanent reminder of how my recovery progressed. Looking forward to your follow-up posts!
Cheers,
PeteGood plan, Tim – I had my second hip done at 66 as I couldn’t trust it not to let me down in the hills. Ironically I was running pretty well in the month before the operation, fortunately I could still remember how much it had hurt a couple of months before that! It is great to have a surgeon encouraging you to run again but I think he is unduly pessimistic – January would be a good target for jogging, April should be back to racing! Good luck – 5 years later I am still running at roughly the same Master’s percentage as I always did, even though it does seem slow sometimes…
Pete
Garmin Forerunner 55 sounds ideal, about £150, or its predecessor 45 for around £100. Much better specs on the new version. Not sure how any GPS watch can be that inaccurate – what did you buy? All of my Garmins have been accurate enough for running.
Brilliant, WedgeC – well done, most inspiring!
I am too old to think of PRs but in Masters age percentage terms I too managed a best score over 5k, 73%, 11 years after my previous best (albeit 2:20 slower) and this gives me great hope for the future too..
Hi, welcome!
Read some of the current posts, there are several folk, boys and girls, starting their adventures in running with a THR at the moment, lots of info to absorb.
In my case, I was jogging at 6 weeks and back in the mountains at 4 months, but this was over 4 years ago so no Covid to recover from..
I started on hard flat surfaces, in ordinary trainers, at a very slow jog/walk/jog, checking for new pains/funny feelings and being very careful. The hospital physio, however, stuck me on a treadmill and made me run properly (but not very elegantly) so I stopped worrying and so my 6 week jog was actually at parkrun, 5k. I went down the route of small steps, faster cadence in flat shoes – some go the other way and get Hoka or similar soft cushioned shoes, and start running on grass. I was fit before the op. so was reasonably quick quite quickly, this did not last very long and had to build up mileage slowly to regain proper fitness. Basically my best advice is to ‘suck it and see’ – I recorded my progress on my Garmin devices, nice to be able to look back and see how far you have come.
Good luck,
PeteHi Rob, Pietro is a neurologist, I believe, working in a hospital in New Zealand so has ready access to orthopaedic surgeons opinions, possibly of the kind that are not freely given to the general public. Hope I am not treading on his toes by mentioning this.
In other news, Saturday’s parkrun was number 400 for me. Natural hips lasted to 170-odd and 250-odd so I have done about 140 on my Zimmer THR. It was a miserable wet day, cold and windy, and I wore a waterproof under my modified 100 (to indicate 400) parkrun shirt. Despite all that I managed 25:03 for 71.2%, a best time since parkrun restarted, and my RunBritain handicap has taken a leap in the right direction as a result. 4 seconds faster and I would have been ecstatic!Pete
Hi Pietro, glad to see you are running well again – I use 70% as my benchmark and was chuffed to bits to get 71% as a Christmas present at parkrun, although considerably slower than you due to my advanced years (and missing training due to sciatica in the summer).
It gives us experimenters more confidence when a medical professional like yourself is prepared to take advantage of a surgical procedure like THR to continue active sport, having weighed up the evidence.Pete
Hi Janice, Happy New Year and congratulations on taking the plunge back into running. I am sure your careful approach will pay dividends and you will be back to parkrun by the Spring!
I had the second hip hanging over me for a couple of years but gave me no option when it finally had enough, fortunately I got it fixed within a couple of months with BUPA insurance – now at the mercy of the NHS I’m counting my blessings as Covid has generated huge waiting lists…Good Luck going forward – steadily!
Pete
Brilliant news, Wedge, good luck going forward! I can’t match your paces, being 20 years older, but I did apply the same logic in progressing after surgery – twice. Just a case of sciatica to sort out as my lower back has been getting stiffer over the years but still managed 17 miles in the hills last week. Current target, for the 4th time, is sub-25 minute parkrun (PB is 22:03 aged 60), although I have a marathon PB of 2:54 from 30 years ago…
Great to see you back in the fold Rob! Not done Cardiff but I have run Pontypool, and got a pretty decent time there. Since our last correspondence I have been looking at specific devices and their failures and it is interesting that the Exeter cemented hip has failures in fatigue fracture of the stem – in inactive, heavy people who probably hardly use their hips, and the Furlong Evolution device had a couple of peculiar failures where the ceramic ball had worn through the polythene liner and the titanium cup – but Michael Rix on this site has run sub-16 minute 5k and raced triathons for at least 7 years on one of these devices. I personally know an inactive lady who broke a ceramic hip doing nothing particular, and heard of a titanium stem breaking whilst sitting. Shit happens, as they say, but it does not seem to happen so much in the active community. Best of luck going forward – I have just come back from a glorious couple of days in Snowdonia, walking up big hills and waking up muscles that don’t get used on the road, and despite aggravating my sciatica do not regret a minute of the temporary pain of recovery as a price to be paid for a great time in the hills with my son. We are all experiments, it would be good if the profession could collate our experiences to allow others to base their decisions on good data rather than hearsay/anecdote. I have recorded everything on Garmin since 2014, walking, biking, running, mountaineering and I guess others will have done so as well. Surgeons need to realise just how good their devices can be in the proper hands…
Hi Rob – this looks like bad news.
On the other hand, we now know the stem is cemented (and we need someone on here with a cemented stem to join the conversation) and the bearing is the expected plastic on ceramic, like most hiprunners I suspect. Your surgeon suggests the device is not designed to take large axial loads but I found a testing site that quotes stem fatigue tests at 517 pounds/5 million cycles and neck fatigue loads of 1200 pounds/10 million cycles as standard. For me, those figures equate to 3.5g and over 8g shocks respectively, ten million cycles could be 10,000 km or 6,000 miles or more. I have a very gentle running style, low shock loads, and I only have another 10 years or so of running left so I am happy to continue to test my devices. I am a little worried by your cemented stem and you have to worry about revisions in your future and I don’t know your weight/running style – but I would still encourage you to give it a go when you feel ready, if it does not feel right at least you will have tried…
Good luck
PeteHi Henry,
I have a left BHR and a right THR, BHR is 7 years old and has less running on it than yours but still up to 30k, and slower because I am 70 but still trying to race 5k every week. I have always been able to feel my BHR hip but not painfully, my THR is generally unnoticeable but since June 1st I have had sciatica and could barely walk for a month. If I did not know better I would have thought the THR was failing but its actually my spine (L4/L5 vertebrae) causing the problem. Being stretched on an IDD machine has improved things to allow running and walking again, and walking really well, but there is still an impingement on the nerve which is taking ages to resolve. Maybe you have a back problem after all the ultra pounding you have experienced?
Good luck on finding a resolution. If your metal ions are ok you can’t have worn your BHR out…Pete
