June 2020 @ 100 Miles

Right before June started I joined a challenge to run 100 miles in the month of June. Tonight I finished that challenge. Roughly 6 days ahead of schedule.

Route that put the counter over 100 miles.

I’m the type of guy that will dwell on things for years and other things no dwelling at all. I’m not sure where I’m at on running 100 miles. I’m a combination of “so what” and “I’ve never run 10 miles in a month before, this is pretty good progress, five months after surgery.”

How does my knee feel?

It feels fine. I can tell all my muscles are still not there, the mass I have on my right leg compared to my left leg is still a lot different. But it’s growing every week. I’m feeling the strength returning and in some cases more strength than I had prior to surgery. As far as ACTUAL pain it’s mostly non-existent. I mean putting 100 miles on your body will take its toll. So both of my legs have different pain associated with the running. I would not characterize it as the damaging kind of pain.

Where the drill heads went into my bones, I really don’t feel anything. I have some nerve damage on my left tibia where the largest incision was, so that has a weird sensation. As far as the femur is concerned it the soreness is muscle soreness because the muscle is still growing there.

Should I have run 100 miles so soon after surgery?

I don’t know. Maybe not, or maybe?

A short tangentially related story.

I was on morphine and hydrocodone right after surgery, as far as pain killers are concerned they are great. They didn’t make feel good though. There are side affects that suck with those drugs, I won’t go into details. One of my friends told me I should try smoking pot or eating an edible instead of the pain killers. I thought that sounded silly. But I tried it. I took a 10mg edible and the pain subsided, I slept like a baby, woke up with no grogginess or anything that I would feel after a night being on the painkillers. There is an added benefit that I laughed my ass off at the stupidest of things for probably 2 hours. That was great.

So at my follow up appointment with my surgeon, he asked how my pain was. I told him that it was fine. He asked if I was still on the hydro and asked if I needed any more. I told him that I didn’t need any more and felt like I should mention to him what I did instead. He responded with, “that makes sense and I could see how that would be better on the side affects that you didn’t like with the painkillers.” He finished with, “what you should do is listen to your body, pay attention to the signals your body sends you and don’t ignore anything.”

So, should I have run 100 miles in June?

If you asked me, I’d say, “yes” If you asked my doctor he may respond differently, because he has to. Does that mean he’s right? Generally speaking I’m sure he is, but if I listen to my body then I should be fine. So far I don’t regret anything about what I’ve done this month.

I don’t know what my plan will be for July yet, this was a competition and competitions are what I like because it gives me something to aim for. It’s going to get hot in July and August, so I need to be prepared for that. Training will have to ramp up significantly in those months in preparation for the Chicago Marathon in October, which is still on.