Over the Presidents weekend I had a chance to do a 3.5 mile hike in Yosemite 2500' up to view of upper Yosemite falls. A really good workout doing lots of rock 'stair stepping' up and down..
So, gradually, with lots of effort, the right leg is getting stronger. Today's run (3.2 miles) had a ground-contact-balance very close to 50-50 (see the green, which is good..)
I'm still pretty inefficient running. If I run at what I consider a 'decent' pace of 10:30 m/m my HR climbs up to 135+ which is not appropriate for what should be an 'easy pace'. I have to slow down or do some walking to bring it down. (My max HR is about 160 bpm)
But, it's already noticeably better than just a few weeks ago. There's a reason why they call you a 'patient': you need to be patient.
Physical Therapy
Once a week, Sonja Kranzfelder has been my therapist and she has done a great job,She has pushed me to improve my range of motion as well as my strength in the
operative leg with a farrago of exercises.
I may have the potential to be ergonomically better than I was before the THR.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Paul will be that man. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster."
Do you remember this show? Ok so I put my name in there instead of Steve Austin 8) It was the "SIx Million Dollar Man". My THR was billed out at $143,000. (!) so I guess I'm a lot cheaper ;)
Sonja has pushed me to reduce the foot turnout, something I would have never thought
possible. It's difficult: I have a lifetime of soft tissue adaptation to the turnout, but
perhaps (especially when running) I can learn to keep it in line.
Previously things were pretty funky: even with a lift in my left leg (almost 1/4") to try to match
the right leg, the right leg was not doing as much...I'm not using any lift right
now. Dr Graw evened this out pretty well I think.
When running, various people have offered up comments like "You look like you are about
to sprain an ankle" or "wow that's what I call pronation", etc. (they meant duck-foot)
And we won't even talk about the taunting I got as a kid.
The turnout was pretty severe..check out this posting if you haven't seen it already.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I might get a bit of an edge from improving this and having my leg length matched better.. It's a fun thought. We shall see.
My goal: run a solid marathon (sub 5hr even pace) sometime on or around a year from my operation (Nov 1).
I'm not sure if that's actually practical but given my current rate of improvement it seems possible.
Once I get back to being lean and mean running machine, I plan to put more non-impact bike and elliptical training back in the mix to reduce wear. But first I need to get fit again and running is by far and away the best way to do that.
NB: I ran a 4:42 marathon at Napa Valley, Mar. 3, 2018