28 Days.....

Yesterday was 28 days since I had my surgery. I was thinking about the coversation that I had with the surgeon before I decided to have the operation done. I said to him "will this have any long term side effects with respect to running", and his answer was "no, you will be a little sore for a couple of weeks and back to normal not long after that". Maybe I was a little naive thinking that I would be running close to my normal 'unfit' times by now, or I just didn't listen to the Doctor and only heard what I wanted to hear. I would like to think that I had unrealistic expectations as I didn't take the decision to have the operation lightly, and maybe my definition of long term and his definition are 'slightly' different.


I went away for a few days over the Christmas break and didn't make any plans to do any exercise whilst away. There is always way too much food and alchol to be consumed to even comtemplate running. For two days I lived a lifestyle that is usually foreign to me and felt horrible on Monday the day we left to come back to Brisbane. Before we left that morning I decided to strap the shoes on and attempt to go for my first outdoor jog. We were staying about 200m from the beach at Agnes Water so I thought it would be a little softer to run on the compact sand than the road. I ended up doing 2km at about 6min/km pace, which felt good, the humidity was bad though and I was dripping with sweat after 2km of relatively slow running.

Tuesday 27th, as I said at the start 28 days since surgery and only 5 days to my public running debut. My wife went shopping yesterday with some friends so I was home alone. We got a Dvd for Xmas called having a baby, which is a pregnancy documentry so I watched that, yes I was bored.

It was about 1pm and couldn't stand staying home any longer. I felt like going for a run, however I knew I would pay later as the temperature was very hot but I still went. I slapped on the sunscreen and grabbed water and went to a local 400m track. I haven't ran on undulating areas yet and thought that a track would be a good start. I planned for 5k, the same distance I ran the weekend before the surgery and as the run this sunday. The knee felt alright, I think that I have about 80% of my range of movement. The impact feels weird though, the thigh is still weak and so I have to use my calf muscles alot more of that side to support the weight. To do this I run more on my toes on that side, so it looks like I limp abit aswell. I ended up stopping once for about 15 secs to grab a drink but apart from that I completed my first 5 k (12.5 laps) with no drama's.

Lap 1- 2.04
Lap 2- 2.02
Lap 3- 2.01
Lap 4- 1.58
Lap 5- 1.59
Lap 6- 1.58
Lap 7- 1.59
Lap 8- 1.56
Lap 9- 1.56
Lap 10- 2.06
Lap 11- 1.58
Lap 12- 2.12(drink break)
Lap 13- 54 secs (200m)

It feels good to actually post a time :)

Total time was 25.08 just over 5min/k pace, 28 days on and 7 mins slower!