Featured

I Have Been Converted

Helloooo everyone!

We are back and still moving along, putting in the work and trying our best to be patient with the results. I am sure the title has you wondering what exactly have I been converted to? Well let me tell you, I have had flat feet since the start of my time in 1994. Every doctor has noticed my extremely flat feet and all recommended orthotics. I honestly believed it was just a money grab. Now I am not fully on the orthotics bandwagon but I have been convinced to purchase them.

I received the insoles this week. To be honest I was picturing something VERY different when I got the insoles. Even the receptionist noticed my expression through my mask because she said “ya alot of people usually expect something different when they pickup their insoles”. The orthotics looked like the same ones that I bought off amazon but they were just not made specific to my foot. Anyways, I took them out for a spin and it hurt my feet within the first 5mins. I do not recommend running in them without actually breaking into it. So changed the approach and just walked around in them. It is gonna take some time to get use to.

I felt a bit more solid on the landing but nothing to crazy. We will see once I start putting in the miles and checking if my knee continues hurting. I did clock some miles in without the new insoles. Did me 2-3 runs without tracking it on Strava just to leave the ego out of this recovery phase. I have been feeling pretty good no real discomfort during or after the runs. I am continuing my stretches (which I have been getting very addicted to) and it just feels sooooo good when I can touch my feet. Little TIP for the new stretchers out there, do the stretch, then take a deep breathe reset the body and then try to reach again. Continue this and let me know if you notice your mobility increase. I personally was shocked with how far I was able to go. Like just being able to touch my toes was a struggle until I practiced the breathing technique and I was able to grab my toes and I just thought I was bending my knees but I was not! No idea why this works but it does!

So once I start really using the orthotics I will let you guys know how the body is feeling and then maybe I will actually become a orthotics believer. Anyways thank you for reading I hope you guys are enjoying your runs, reaching your goals and staying safe.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

Featured

Strava May Have Ruined My Progress The First Time Around – Rehab pt.2

After months of waiting I have finally started to get back into running. Tests have been done, the pain has subsided and we are slowly going to have to rebuild to where we left off. Just to provide you guys with an update. I was convinced to give orthotics a try for my horribly flat feet to see if it will help to reduce the cartilage breakdown in my left knee which should also hopefully reduce the pain I feel after running. Since I over pronate quite a bit my stability shoes on the guide 13 were not enough I guess, so the one thing that I have been avoiding since forever is up to bat now. Orthotics, which are quite expensive and thankfully I am covered under my insurance and only have to cover 20% of the costs.

I have been running slightly the past 2 weeks introducing a run walk program that my doctor advised. The idea was 1min on 4 mins off for 20 mins. Honestly, this was super humbling because it took a lot of restrain to stop running after a minute and then walk for 4 minutes. Even though I felt pretty good. Now were going to hopefully try for 2mins of nonstop running with no pain and see if it works out. This time around I am running with no tracker and going solely based off of feeling. I noticed that when I am tracking myself I start to pay attention to my distances and paces quite a bit even though I am going slowly. So this time around I just want to run and just enjoy the act of running this will hopefully push out the ego. This may just be me, but personally strava started to turn into a new social media app and I would pay attention to other runners paces/distances and subconsciously compare myself. Luckily, I noticed this and can now try to be more mindful so I will be able to continue to focus on my own progress. Instead of comparing I can just be happy for everyone else’s progress unconditionally.

If anyone can relate to any of the things I talked about I would love to hear about your thoughts/feelings. As always thank you for reading and I hope you guys are all crushing your goals and keeping healthy.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

Featured

How to make those big decisions

Today I am going to be talking about how you can help purify your thoughts and solidify your actions. So I am sure we all go through this at some point in our life, when we are trying to make a big decision in our life and we are not sure if its correct. Usually we spend so much time thinking if this is the right thing to do for us or deciding if it will turn out how we see it. Many of us just think about what we want to do while forgetting the big question. The “WHY”.

We are all so enwrapped with our next step that we sometimes can forget that solidifying our reasoning can help us follow through with our decisions. If the reasoning is strong enough then the urge to get started will also propell you even further. As knowing WHY you are doing something is better than you just wanting to complete a task just because. An example of this would be taking the garbage out to the curb so the garbage man will take the trash and dispose of it properly. Now many of us probably reluctantly do it because its garbage day or your significant other/parent is telling you to take it out. We’ve all been there and acted annoyed when were being told to do it but if we just thought about it differently and explained to ourselves WHY we need to do this, then you’d have a legitimate reason that you should take the garbage out. Mine was “well I need to take the garbage out otherwise its gonna overflow and the smell is just gonna get worse, also raccoons are gonna come back and make a mess.” That alone was enough for me to try and make sure I took the trash out happily.

Based on the last example every important action can be solidified with the right intention. If you know the intention as to why you want to make a career change or why you are looking for a soul mate or why you want to make a big purchase that will one, make you more confident in your decision. Second, it will also help reduce the stress you feel because you will not be wondering if this is the right thing for you. Thirdly, you will be able to build off of that reasoning as you go through with the task as you will find more reasons confirming your intentions along the way. Don’t get me wrong I understand that with ever decision there is the good and the bad that comes with it. If you have a strong enough reasoning/intention the bad may not seem to beat out the good as much. Plus, if you are sacrificing anything like less income because you are in school or heartbreak because you are putting yourself out there to find the ONE at least you will know WHY you are doing this.

I do think that making sure you understand that really digging deep to really find out WHY you are doing something is very important. Purest intentions can help build a strong foundation for your action that way you will never second guess yourself or wonder if this is really for you. Understanding that having intentions that serve others is the best way to strengthen your reasoning as doing it to benefit others, whether it be your family, friends or your future clients makes completing it that much more pure. Then creating intentions to help yourself is also a pure intention as it could be to make yourself healthier. Although it is for yourself it will help with your mental health or even make you feel happier. Build a stronger body and mind as it will help you function better as a human being and contribute more to society. Having wavering or weak reasonings can cause you to second guess yourself or even lead you to failing. An example of a weak reason/intention would be me taking out the garbage just because my significant other is telling me to. As I am doing it because someone else is telling me to do it, not because I believe it is the right thing. Its different if you are doing it because you care about that person and it is important to them. That is an example of a strong intention.

I hope this helps you and allows you to get through those tough questions that you may ask yourself someday. Thank you so much for reading.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

Featured

The rehab has been put on pause

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone has been doing well. I just wanted to hop in and give everyone an update because although I thought I was getting better things kind of took a turn. The pain returned in the knee when I started put in 3 runs a week. So the doctor has told me that I should take a break and he needs to run some more tests. Now that was not exactly what I was hoping to hear after about 3 months of this on going rehabilitation.

When I heard this I was extremely frustrated and pretty disappointed. Now the next steps for me were to get an x-ray done which turned out clear. So I just did an MRI and I did not realize this but MRIs are in high demand. They are conducting those through all hours of the day. My appointment was at 2AM but I also had the option to book an appointment at 5AM otherwise there next slot was in March. I was super surprised about that. Now here is where things got little tricky because my doctor advised me to keep going for physio sessions. This is kind of where I used my own judgement since the doctor clearly was not sure why my knee was hurting. It made sense for me not to continue until he got the results and was able to tell me exactly what was wrong. Not to say that they just want me to continue paying for sessions because maybe he did not want me to lose out on the strength building I had built up in those 3 months. I did not see it as necessary just because I could continue doing the exercises I had been doing during rehab on my own.

So that was my personal opinion that I thought I could share with you. Not 100% sure if it is correct but in my head it made sense. If any of you have gone through rehab to find it did not work, how did you move from there? If you had any thoughts on that please let me know I would love to hear about them.

As always thank you for reading I hope you all are enjoying your runs and crushing your goals.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

Things are heating up!

Since the last we spoke, I was in good spirits because the training was going well and we were slowly ramping up our mileage for the week.

So far things have still been going GREATTTT. We have upped the long run to 10km now. longest run yet since I got the knee pain. It was pain free so im pretty excited and hopeful for the rest of the training runs. We were able to bump the weekly mileage up 10% to 22k from 20km. I was alittle nervous because I bumped my long run from 8k to 10k. It may not seem big but I was just very nervous about getting the pain back and 10k seemed like a deciding distance.

Thankfully, everything went well and we are gonna keep ramping up the distance to 24k. Still really focusing on stretching and activating my glutes before I attempt any run while also using my orthotics in my running shoes. One thing I did notice that today when I went to the track for a little 5x400m interval my knee did not feel to good. I think that it was because the surface is not turf, but its made from gravel/sand material. Due to the material the surface was a little uneven when I was landing and I could feel my knees going inwards depending on how I landed. So definitely going to stay away from tracks like that or surfaces like that entirely for now as I am rebuilding. Knowing this I am a bit nervous about hitting up some trails because the ground tends to be uneven with roots and stones on the ground which could effect my leg positions. That we will just have to remember and keep moving forward.

That is my update for you guys. I will hopefully have more good news next week for you all. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you guys are all crushing your goals and staying motivated during this interesting time of our lives.

Stay happy, Stay safe, Keep breathing

WERE GETTING THERE – (orthotic review)

So just to give you guys a little update. I have been consistently running the past few weeks. Slowly increasing my mileage every week and we have brought the weekly mileage to 18km now. By the end of this week I am hoping to hit 20km. So far the runs have been pain free except for once, but I was being silly and rushing downhill. I have learnt that I cannot let my body carry me downhill and have to focus on softer landings for now.

Right now I have been really focusing on activating my glutes and stretching before as well as after my runs. It has been very eye opening because I never thought I was flexible but after consistently stretching I have found that I can be quite flexible if I breathe through my stretches. Certain ways I activate my glutes are standing bridges. Where I lean my shoulders on the back of the wall and put one foot on the wall. Afterwards I push my body off the wall with that foot. I have found that to be very helpful with activating my glutes. Also after using my orthotics for a bit I guess its time for my review. I personally, did not really notice to much of a change while running, my feet were just a little sore, which I believe is just my feet adjusting. However, my stride and the way I run still feels similar. I am assuming it is just gradually adjusting my stride or just allowing me to plant my feet on the ground without straining my knees as much since I have super flat feet. I know this is not much of a review but I am just trying to give my honest opinion for you guys.

To give you guys a little breakdown of my mileage the past couple weeks. I started out without strava and I started at 3km, the next week was 6km, 8km, 12km, 18km and this week hopefully 20km. I am going to try and increase my distance 10% every week and see how the knee holds up. I do have a marathon that I am signed up for that was pushed to this may but depending on my knee I may or may not run it (also tentative on COVID). So I will have to see but I am sure gonna try to train so I can at least attempt the run if it does happen.

That is all for my little update. thank you so much for reading, I hope you all are crushing your goals and staying safe.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

One Step Forward and One Step Back

Welcome back to the blog! This weeks blog is gonna be a doozy. Based on last weeks post recovery was going VERY well. Then this week rolled around and it was a total 360 from last week. Last week was pain free and then this time was full of pain.

Lets start from the beginning, I know anybody reading this is probably going to say it was a mistake on my part which is probably true. Can you really blame a guy I was excited and amped to be back, plus feeling great. So first run of the week was Monday. I went out on a 5k run and was able to hold a 5min pace per km and felt great. Then Wednesday rolls around and we go for a slower 5km at a 5.36min/km pace. Close to the last km I started to feel a sharp pain in my knee and right under the knee cap where I usually feel the pain.

I finished the last km and got home and honestly had no idea why it was hurting so suddenly like that especially when I was going slower on that run. So I stretched it out hoping it’d feel better tomorrow. Nope, that did not happen. Woke up the next day struggled to push off my leg at all without there being any pain. Felt super frustrated and had no idea what was going on since I thought things were getting better. Booked an appointment with my doctor to take another look at me since it been over 6 weeks so I was super concerned. Going to see him Monday (tomorrow) to talk about it.

then I waited till Saturday to go on a sort 3k run at a 6min pace because it was just so nice out and my knee was not in nearly as much pain as it was on Wednesday. So I think its because I may have pushed my legs to hard on Monday’s run that caused the pain but who knows anymore. Just hoping I can keep running shorter distances at slower paces at least but lets see. With all the extra time I have been having because I am not out running or focusing on recovery I actually started Streaming games on twitch! So if anybody is interested my handle is bwam94. (https://www.twitch.tv/bwam94) Thought it would make me feel less guilty about spending my free time gaming and not being very productive with my time.

If you guys have gone through an injury and have felt frustrated, how did you guys cope? I’d love to hear back because I could definitely use some suggestions. compared to my last injury this is way worse since its stopping me from running.

Anyways, sorry for this being a bit of a downer. Just wanted to keep you guys up to date. I hope everyone is working on their goals and enjoying their runs, as always thanks for reading.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

The Comeback + Winter Gear

Happy holidays and happy almost new year everyone. Santa listened to my wish and helped me to start running again. The past week, I FINALLY got the green light to start running again as long as there is no pain. So far luckily everything is going smoothly. There is no pain during the run so very very happy with the progress. Although I am not running high mileage I definitely am not complaining. Definitely hoping to take my time in building the mileage because I guess I am still in recovery. So last week I ran twice they both were about 3km each around the high 5min/km pace. Slowly working my way up. Today I also finished up with a 4km run through G Ross park trail.

In Canada the winter is coming out now so the roads and trails tend to be a little slippery with the ice. So I had to watch out for those patches. I thought I would also give you guys a little breakdown of what I wear on runs during the cold days. I always bring gloves and a tuc because my ears and hands tend to get cold really fast. Then I would wear a t-shirt/long sleeve with a thin wind breaker on top because once you get moving the feeling of being cold disappears. For the bottom half I will wear tights with my 5-inch nike running shorts if temperatures are above -5 anything lower I will probably switch to some track pants with the tights underneath. For shoes, I don’t actually have any winter specific running shoes as the current ones I use are still working fine for me. I have heard the Peregrine ICE+ from Saucony is pretty good for winter running incase anyone is needs a new pair(not sponsored I just like saucony). For any new runners, the difference between road running shoes and winter running shoes is the tread at the bottom. The winter shoes tend to have more grip at the bottom to give you a little more stability. Most trail running shoes can work as winter running shoes.

Thanks for reading I hope everybody is killing their goals and setting new ones for the next year. I will keep you guys posted on my next couple runs.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

Recovery update

So it has been quite some time since my last post. To be honest was not really sure what to say on these since alot of my time was just spent doing the prescribed exercises every week. I was not feeling to happy with the progress. So I have been stuck in a little bit of a rut.

It is about the 5th week of rehab right now and I have honestly been quite happy with everything until last week. We were focusing on the strengthening work and last week we decided to throw in some impact work. That was a painful week which made me start to feel down because I felt like I did not make much progress since my knee was still hurting me.

One important thing you need to do during this, is talk to you physiotherapist. Tell them how you are feeling and explain your thought process. One they can reassure you as well as modify the workouts so you can benefit more. So that is exactly what I ended up doing and we talked and worked out a new game plan. I was planning on seeing my sports doctor next week but after thinking about it I felt that I would wait the full 6 weeks before seeing him to show him my progress. Since, he would most likely be telling me to give it more time. Don’t get me wrong the strengthening work has definitely been beneficial my legs are getting stronger and the pain is not as severe as it was while I was running.

Do not even get me started about actually running. I think about going outside for a quick little secret run but, I know its just going to hurt me later on. Every time I look out the window and its sunny I always think to myself ….what a wonderful world, just kidding I think ‘man it would be nice to go out on a run.’ Really hoping I will recover soon but patience is the name of the game at this point. I cannot really do much else I have been going on walks so I am thankful I can at least do that pain free.

Thank you for reading through this and I hope that all of you are enjoying your runs and staying injury free while also being safe. Here in Canada the cases have been on the rise right now so sending you all my positive vibes during this tough time.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing

What to do now?

So I got the results from the doctor and it is not looking to good. Was told I should not be running anymore and will need to do rehab. In case you were curios I have a unbalanced pelvic which has caused a strain in my patellar tendon on my left knee. Luckily it is not tendonitis but I have been advised if I keep running without treating this it could lead to that. So the doctor has told me that I will need to take at least 6 weeks off while doing rehab to fix my pelvic area. They advised met that I need to start being more symmetrical in my daily activities. So that means no leaning on one side while standing, no crossing legs while sitting sleeping in certain positions that keep my hip from shifting.

NOW the question is what will I be doing to pass the time or somewhat keep my fitness. I will pretty much be out for 2 months which was devastating to hear especially since it feels like I just finished getting rid of a hip strain on my right side. However looking back this year has beared me some fruits of my hardwork. I got some PBs for my 5k and half marathon time. So luckily I was at least able to get those before I had to stop.

In the meantime, I will be biking and going back to light weights or body exercises that will not strain the knee as much. This will be a great time to strengthen the legs which will hopefully help my rehab and help me to maintain some form of fitness in my life while I wait patiently. Not going to lie, I was a bit frustrated to hear I cannot run but not much I can do about it now. Once I am better, I will be stronger and faster that is for sure. Hopefully, once I am healed I will have enough time to prep for my marathon coming up in May.

I just wanted to update you guys. Thank you for listening I hope that you all are staying healthy and continue training and being safe at the same time.

Stay happy, Stay healthy, Keep breathing