Hitting the Physical Therapy Jackpot

Since my shinjury first occurred back in March, I have been trying everything I can to heal it (except not training for a marathon—I haven't tried that yet). First of all, because my doctor is the NYRR medical team leader for the marathon, I was convinced he would just wave his magic stethoscope over my leg and fix me right there on the spot. Instead he told me to take 2 weeks off. Reluctantly, I obeyed and began going to PT.

My therapist was a nice-enough, young-ish woman who told me my hips were weak and my turnout was wonky. She made me do exercises by myself and gave me ice. She attempted to massage (but really I'd call it assault-by-thumbs) my leg, but most of the time I kicked and squirmed and shouted with pain until she would stop touching me. Some days I couldn't run, not because of the shin pain but because of residual "massage" pain.  She didn't really understand why I wouldn't just stop running.

The head therapist got involved, and then got offended when I asked (in earnest) how their gait analysis was different from the shoe store's. She was pretty confrontational when I said I couldn't stop running, and basically made me feel like I was wasting their time by coming if I wasn't going to listen, instead of working with me to solve the problem as best as we could under the circumstances.

It was seriously time to move on.

So this morning I had my first appointment with a new physical therapist and... IT WAS GREAT! He spent a lot of time talking to me about the history of my injuries. It's a convoluted time-line, and the way he was repeating things back to me let me know he was actually listening and understanding. He'd say things that I've thought, but stopped trying to explain because they were overly-complicated, runner-minded ideas that made other people's eyes glaze over. He runs marathons, which was a big deal to me because it's way easier to take advice from someone who has already done what you're trying to accomplish. I feel much better knowing that he knows what I'm talking about.

And lastly because, instead of "You really should stop running," he said "We're gonna get you through this marathon."

He did say I would have to take some serious recovery time off between New York and Paris, but the spoonful of sugar really helped that medicine go down.

I'm feeling fixed already :)