Readers, the time has come. I’m fairly sure this will be my last entry, because, well, I am 99% healed.
Last night I ran my longest run yet, 5.5 miles at an 8:09 pace. This is more or less the pace I was running before I broke my leg, and just shy of my usual 6-6.5 miles. Of course, I’m still not running every day like I used to, but I’m doing it three times a week, with elliptical sessions in between. I can definitely feel my leg while running, even in the first steps — it’s not really painful per se, it just feels like something is wrong, but this sensation is slowly getting less prominent.
Moreover, this past weekend I bouldered OUTSIDE. I have to say, I actually barely climbed, half out of fear and half because I spent five hours climbing in the gym the day before, but I did it. Heel hooks with my left leg can still be problematic, but as with running, it’s getting there. And in case you’re wondering, I’m climbing a ton in the gym — four days/11-12 hrs a week. I’m also finally back to my climbing level before I fell. When I came back in May, I felt super strong from all of my pull-ups, but I’m just now realizing that only now has my forearm and hand strength come back. I had a breakthrough/moved off a plateau about 2 weeks ago, and it feels great.
Final Thoughts:
In summary, this has been…not that terrible of an experience. After the actual break, I can think of only one thing that “went wrong,” which was my physical therapist’s wildly optimistic timetable for recovery, which just had me frustrated for most of the spring. I guess I also overdid my recovery exercising a few times, but I think that is inevitable, because there is no way to stay exactly on the line of pushing yourself but not pushing too much. I’m happy to say that I’ve had zero hardware issues, and I have no desire — or need — to be cut open again to remove the screws or, god forbid, the rod itself.
If you are reading this because you just broke your leg, my recovery timetable post is probably the most useful thing on here. Or at least it’s what I wanted to see when I was in my first month of recovery. However, I will also encourage you not to think about nine months from now, because it’s going to feel really far away. The good news is that you will have many, many small milestones along the way to focus on, each of which will be an accomplishment, and will hopefully motivate you to keep pushing forward in your recovery.
Also, my #1 piece of advice, which should be the #1 piece of advice you see everywhere, is to do PT exercises. A lot. NOT for twelve weeks, or sixteen weeks, but until your two legs feel exactly the same. I definitely believe that my consistency with doing PT exercises — which I did at minimum five days a week for a full six months — is why I can run as much/fast as I can right now, which is definitely on the early side of my orthopedic surgeon’s estimate of 9-12 months to “get back” to running.
And on that note, if you are a runner, and are wondering how long it’s going to take you to really get back to it, my sense, based on having run three (bq) marathons and countless halves, is that it would be unwise to plan on anything over a half marathon within the first year of recovery, and that you shouldn’t expect to be anywhere near a PR on that. I suspect it is going to take me over a year to be able to run 6 miles four days in a row.
Well, I think that is all I have to say. I hope that this blog is useful to people, and feel free to get in touch with questions if you want. (Leave a comment) Shout outs to my like, two loyal readers (hi guys!) and my surgeon, Dr. David Lhowe at MGH, who was great. Good luck and best wishes to all of those with broken legs and IM nails with your recovery. You can do it!
I Broke My Leg Bouldering 