A Day at a Time

(Our First Christmas)

               I can’t believe the first month of the New Year is already over! Each day now blends into the next as weekends and weekdays are basically the same for me. I left off my last blog with our trip to Nevada to visit Levi’s family. We lucked out as neither of our flights was completely full so we were able to bring Lilyana’s car seat on and have a row to ourselves. She did really well. It was a short flight, only two hours and though she didn’t cry it still was a lot of work. I don’t know how people travel on longer flights! On the flight home she had an accident 15 minutes after takeoff and I had the wonderful opportunity to use the tiny airplane bathroom to change her and her clothes. Unfortunately I had to wait until I got home to change mine; she definitely broke me in to flying with a baby! Expect the unexpected and even when you do I’m sure the baby will still find a way to throw you through a loop.

(She entertained herself for some of the flight)

                Levi, Lilyana and I had our first Christmas with just the three of us. Usually we are either with my family or his family on Christmas day but this year we chose to go earlier as flights are a lot cheaper if you go at the beginning of December. It was really nice and I am excited for upcoming Christmas’s when Lilyana will be able to take part more and know what is going on. At least I have a few years to get some fun traditions started.

                My favorite Christmas memory was on Christmas Eve. My Mom would fill our stockings then sneak them into our rooms at night, placing them at the foot of our beds. When I was little I would try to stay awake so I could catch her in the act but deep down I didn’t want to catch her. The excitement happened when I would wake up, wiggle my feet, and hear the crunch of wrapping paper and goodies in my stocking at the foot of my bed. As I got older she continued the tradition until I think it was later in high school or maybe even when I came home from college on Christmas vacation, she left them filled by the tree. I remember waking up and even though I knew she wasn’t planning on putting them in the bed, I still wiggled my feet and waited for the crunch that never came. I was surprised to find I was a little bummed but knew I didn’t really “need” it anymore. I think the sadness comes in knowing you are growing up and your family is changing. It is now rare that we have my whole family together around the Holidays as most of my siblings are married and splitting holidays between their new families or like Levi and I, have started their own and will soon be creating their own holiday traditions. It is bitter sweet. The memories are wonderful but I wouldn’t want to stay in one moment forever. Each stage of my life I find that I like it “the best.” I enjoy making new memories and I am excited to pass this tradition on to my children and create warm memories for them that they will someday remember fondly and possibly pass on to their children.

                For “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour whatever he does, whoever he is.”--C.S. Lewis.

(Lilyana believes in us! "Go Dad!")

                Now into the New Year: My training has been going well. I am still slowly building. It can be hard some days and a little daunting I must admit when I think of how far I have to go to get myself competition ready but all I can do is take things a day at a time and make the most of each day. There have been some days when all my energy is spent caring for Lilyana and I cannot fathom the idea of competing at an elite level again. But then there are other days where I know it is possible. I need to not get too caught up in the emotions of the day to day for they can change as quickly as Lilyana can go from happy to screaming and back. One minute I am unstoppable and will conquer the world, the next I am hearing myself say there is no way I can do it all. I start to think about the future, planning for other children and wonder if I am being selfish to even try to plan this around this game of running. Because deep down the most important thing to me is my family. It’s funny how things have changed, going from the highlight of my career at the Olympic Trials to being pregnant with my first baby all in the same year, what I used to deem of high importance in my life I now see really is not that big of a deal. Now I am not saying that I will not be working my butt off to get back to that level, it’s just that if things don’t work out, or I find I cannot balance both and be a good Mom, then I am o.k. with dialing things down and changing my focus. I feel very satisfied with my running career and I think that puts me in a good place for training.

(Keeping things in perspective by having fun. My Lily face.)

                This past week marked my first week back of “official” training under my coach and younger brother John Ricardi. My week’s mileage was only 20 running miles with one day of an hour cross training on the spin bike and two lifting sessions. It really isn’t any different from the weeks I was “winging” it before but I do better when I have a plan laid out. I like seeing what I have coming up throughout the week, then I am better able to plan for the workouts and get them in. It is extremely helpful to have this now that my days are somewhat of a blur and I am not really on a schedule anymore, just Lilyana’s schedule which can change at the flip of a switch. Having a training plan helps put me back on a schedule. When I would take a day off from exercising I would feel “guilty” for having not gotten something done. My schedule this week gave me 3 days off from running and I did not feel an ounce of guilt when I took them. If it’s written down then it’s o.k. to do!

(Lilyana's pre-crawl training)

                Lilyana’s training has been going great. If I had leaps and bounds like she does from day to day I would already be running Olympic A standards! It is cool to see a baby go through and hit their little milestones. She now flips over effortlessly, gets onto her hands and knees and rocks and does a sort of inch worm to get places. She is semi mobile by rolling, scooting her legs in, lying down, and repeating until she gets where she wants to be. She laughs heartily at my silliness, loves looking at her hands, grabs things, and chews on everything. She loves splashing in the bath and pulling my hair. She loves to babble and try out her range of vocal cords and strength of lungs. So don’t be surprised if I say “What?” a lot when in conversation. She can sit up o.k. but not really without assistance. If I put my fingers out she will grab them and pull herself up to sitting. She surprised me the other day by holding onto the top of her play mat and standing. She did not pull herself up to standing but I was holding her and when I went to sit her down she wouldn’t sit so I let go and she was standing on her own, holding onto the toy for balance and support.

                It brings me great joy to have her in my life and to see Levi being a Father. I feel so blessed. When I look into her smiling face even on the roughest day, when I am feeling exhausted, apprehensive about the future, and disheveled, all is right with the world.  I can’t help but smile when I see her gummy grin. I am smiling right now just thinking about it.

(Love this girl!)

Taking Real Baby Steps

(Recovering in Bed)

                This title may be a bit misleading as Lilyana has yet to take her first steps. I am assuming it will be many months down the road, but I have been taking some baby steps of my own. On November 27^th I had my one month post op appointment with my surgeon. He checked out my knee and was very pleased with the healing, so pleased in fact that he cleared me for “jogging” already! That was 6 weeks sooner than I anticipated.

                I had to make him spell out exactly what he meant by “jogging.” When my midwives told me I could do “cardio” two weeks after having Lilyana I assumed that meant running. I assumed wrong. But this time he really meant jogging. He told me to always start with a walk to warm up then jog 5 or so minutes, walk, jog, walk, jog, etc. over time gradually decreasing my walk and increasing my run time and taking 72 hours rest between jogging days. Pace is meaningless right now. It is all about minutes.

                The next day was Thanksgiving and before our first Thanksgiving as our new little family Levi, Lilyana and I ventured out to the turf fields for some exercise. I made it about 20 meters, my first “jog.” I was elated and exclaimed, “Look at me Levi! I’m running!” As I did some strange looking shuffle run at a pace Levi could easily walk next to. The people playing kickball must have thought I was nuts. Next, I tried 50 meters and made it. Then I got ambitious and told Levi I was going to jog to the end of the field and back. I made it half way and turned around and decided to call it quits for the day and we walked home. I could now justify eating my favorite Pecan Pie since I had jogged maybe a total of 200 meters.

(Lilyana gets her exercise wrestling her toys)

                Fast forward a few weeks and things are progressing. My jog is actually looking like a jog and the minutes I spend walking are decreasing. For instance today I started with a 5 minute walk. Then I jogged for 20 minutes (around a 9:20 minute mile), followed by walking for 5, jogging for 15 then a walk cool down totaling 5 miles. On the walk portions I put the treadmill at 5% incline and the jogs 0%.

My knee is feeling more and more stable every day. It is not painful but I am being careful not to push it too soon. We are leaving for Nevada tomorrow to see Levi’s family which should keep me in check as I will be busy visiting family and not thinking about exercising too much. When I start seeing gains in my healing it is hard not to want to dive head first into plotting out my training and future racing goals. I have a ways to go before I am at this point. On top of my jogging I am cross training a few days a week on the spin bike and am doing strength work 2-3 times per week. My left quad has some catching up to do with the right one as it has definitely atrophied a bit. Even before the surgery it was noticeably smaller than the right as I was unable to really use those muscles properly due to my knee pain. I am optimistic that things will heal properly and I will be back to training and racing in no time.

For the first time in awhile I actually look forward to being on the treadmill because it sure beats being laid up on the couch.

Sometimes the Road to Recovery has Construction along the Way

(Luckily I was still able to do some hunting in MT despite my surgery)

                Three weeks ago I was starting to feel strong, I was slowly getting back to increasing my mileage, my strength training was going well, and then I had knee surgery.  I am now back to rehab and will slowly work my way back up to running.

                You may be wondering why I had surgery. It was not the result of a traumatic injury as you might think but rather I chose to have the surgery to try and fix an ongoing problem in my left knee. Over 2.5 years ago I remember having some knee pain during the outdoor track season. I chalked it up to being due to the steeplechase as that event will beat anyone up and figured I would rest after the season. I rested, iced, and took care of the area but the nagging pain was there. I could run through it so I did. I had other seasons to get ready for and with each passing year the pain remained. I did not just sit idly by and agree to be in pain. I tried everything I could to help alleviate the problem. I went to physical therapy at the Sports Reaction Center, I rested (even when I tore my MCL on my right leg all that time off could heal the MCL but not what was ailing my left knee), I iced, I cross trained, I strength trained, I did massage, I foam rolled. Then I started going to Doctors.

                One Doctor told me it could be chondromalacia, another said he thought I was suffering from Plica syndrome after doing an ultrasound. Both Doctors reassured me I was not doing any bone damage by continuing to run. This was reassuring to me because I do not want to have major problems when I am older. The last Doctor I saw who did the ultrasound, told me I could try cortisone injections to help alleviate the swelling in the Plica but he really did not recommend it at my age in the knee joint. It could be risky so I figured I would just deal with the pain. This was last October. Then I became pregnant and I figured the time off from racing would help my knee heal. But the pain remained. So two months after Lilyana was born when I was just starting to feel strong again I decided to seriously pursue my options of fixing my knee. I had talked to my dad and found out he had surgery years ago to remove his Plica as his was overgrown. He had been dealing with the pain for three years and it was very similar to mine. It can be genetic so I figured it was very probable that I had the same issue. It was time to find out.

                My physician referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. Within a week period I had an appointment with him, some x-rays, an MRI and then a lateral release on my left knee. After the MRI and during the procedure he told me it was not the Plica. For some reason the ligament (lateral retinacular) on the left side of my leg was overgrown, thick, and very tight. It had gotten to the point of “no return.” No matter how much stretching, massage, and foam rolling I did it was not going to get better without surgery.

(2 weeks post op)

On October 31^st I had a lateral retinacular release.  The first three days were rough, especially trying to care for a baby but it really wasn’t that painful as I opted not to take any pain medicines due to having to feed Lilyana. They did a spinal during my surgery so I was able to watch the whole thing. It was kind of cool to just walk into the operating room. I have never done that before. The one other time I have been in an O.R. I was completely out.

                The healing time for this surgery is about twice as long as for a Plica extraction. The estimate is 12 weeks. However I feel optimistic based on how I am already healing. At my one week post-op visit my surgeon even said he felt that I would heal quickly as I was already ahead of most people at this point with what I could do. My strength training began with quad sets (contracting the quad muscle for 10 seconds, resting and repeating), leg lifts 4-6” off the ground, and other very basic exercises. Just over two weeks out and I am pedaling a spin bike, doing wall squats, walking, and have just incorporated in single leg squats (with one leg back on a chair). Granted this is all very basic, I am not really getting in any cardio but I am very optimistic that I will heal quickly but I am willing to be patient.  

                Some people may think the timing of this was unfortunate but I would disagree. Doing it years ago would seem logical but at the time I wanted to exhaust all other options before surgery. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it while pregnant or right after birth as I needed to give my body time to heal from that. I wasn’t exactly back in top shape so I really am only extending my comeback from pregnancy. For me, the timing couldn’t be more perfect to finally being pain free.

(On the "comeback machine." This bike helped my friend and sister-in-law Jane make a comeback after a mountaineering accident in July of 2012).

               

A Pregnancy Journey

          I have been "working" on this video for the past year. It is pretty amazing to look back and see all the changes that led to our precious baby!