Lenore – General Update 3yrs Post Surgery

Howdy everybody! I’m keeping up on reading posts via a feed to my Feedly account but I haven’t posted in a long time. 2016 was a big year in running for me because of volume. I haven’t gotten back into marathon running yet because of a few things:

1. I made a deal with myself if I could get through 2 years without an injury I’d start training for a marathon. 2016 was my second year running after my THR and I managed to keep improving in lots of small 5k’s, 3 road half marathons and 2 trail half marathons. Then after my last half marathon in November I had a bit of a back twinge was diagnosed with scoliosis. I’ve been in physical therapy for the last few months and it’s greatly relieved the discomfort I’d felt with running.  I feel more balanced but it took a while to get used to doing some exercises only on one side in therapy.

2. My left hip isn’t deteriorated enough to get that replaced yet but it was talking to me thru 2016. I think the scoliosis therapy has helped it a lot though because it was a left curve putting more stress on the left hip. I’m running a little bit and started a half marathon training program in January but got sidetracked because ….

3. I’m in the middle of switching careers to become a Physical Therapist Assistant. It’s a huge change from being a corporate financial reporting accountant! I’m currently in my first round of clinicals and I’m having a blast. But the class load is pretty heavy right now so I don’t get to run as much as I like. That’s my choice and burden as it’s just a lot of memorization right now, a lot of grunt work — it’s paying off in good grades. I was running 4 times a week and sticking with the plan, then suddenly my head was in a book or flashcards til midnight daily. So instead of being disappointed in not getting the distance in, I’m going to work on getting my mile time down plus continue working on my strength and flexibility. Trying to fit in shorter, more productive workouts will have to do for now with the goal of cutting down my 5k time after the spring semester is over.

I have about 15 months to go until I get released unto the world with my new career as a graduate but I’m in love with it so far. I consider myself very lucky to have this opportunity to do this and it’s really jump started my brain again. But it was my love of running and going through all these hip problems that started me on this path, especially the obsessive reading of things on the net including everything I could on this site. So….thanks Tom for helping me change the course of my professional life!