Good news from sports doc and PT

I had great news from the sports doc. First of all, there's no tear in my cartilege. Yay! Secondly, all I have to do about my knee cap is avoid overloading it. No surgery, no additional activity bans, no sign of the doctor saying I should stop running. Hooray!

It was interesting looking at the MRI scan results. The doctor explained the various things I was seeing, but he went pretty fast so I only paid attention to the high points like "see the cartilege is thinner there" and "see the inflammation there". I'll get them out again later and see if I can identify my artery and stuff like that. Apparently what I've got is wear and tear, slight osteoarthritis. The doctor didn't say whether or not it was normal and I didn't think to ask. I have all these questions now but I didn't think of them earlier when it would have been useful. Thank goodness for the internet.

The doctor did mention that I should keep losing weight, which was inevitable, but he did it in a really nice way. He said "keep losing" rather than "lose", acknowledging that I'd already lost a lot of weight.

I realised, while I was talking to him, that I was probably going to have to make some decisions about how much pain I was willing to put up with in order to achieve my various goals. I didn't discuss that with the doctor though. I didn't think he'd really appreciate that I was thinking about ways to keep up some of my present activities while he was busy advising against them.

This evening I had my PT session with Julia. I wandered down to the gym in time for a ten minute warm up on the treadmill. Because of the embargo on full squats etc we concentrated on upper body. I definitely improved with the chest press. Last week I managed 15/10 reps of 9 kg, with help from Julia on the last 3 of the first set. This week I managed 15/12, the first 15 on my own and with a little help on the last 2. The triceps pushbacks were fine, 2 sets of 15 with 4 kg. With the bent over row, I repeated the two sets of 15 with the 12.5 kg bar. In the middle I did a set of fitball squats down to 30 degrees. I didn't really think I'd feel it, even though I was holding the fifth squat each time, but I did once I'd done ten of them. Then it was stretching, which I really enjoy.

Em was talking about goals the other day, and I've been thinking about mine. The doctor mentioning losing weight and not running hills reminded me of these, so here they are, for what they are worth.

My main fitness and health goals are:
1. Enjoy and improve my running
2. Keep up the variety in my exercise program
3. Stay injury free (and overcome any limitations caused by my knee)
4. Lose weight and centimetres

I have a few specific running goals. I want to participate in and complete the following:
1. The triathlon in early February
2. As many as I can manage of the runs I did last year - the Women and Girls fun run in March, the Marathon Eve 10 k in April, the Mother's Day Classic in May and the Run to the G in June.
3. Run for Kids in Melbourne in April if it doesn't clash with the above (not sure if I'll do the shorter one with the kids or the longer one on my own)
4. The Canberra half marathon in May
5. City to Surf in August
6. Canberra Times fun run in September
7. The 10k or the half at the Melbourne Marathon in Nov (depends if I'm 'over' the half-marathon thing after doing one or not)

To help me with lose weight while working on my running I'm going to do the Runner's World 12 week challenge which ends with a run of at least 5k. I'm thinking that the W&G fun run is about the right time if I start in January.

My squash partner has sorted out his babysitting problems so I'll be aiming to play squash once a week. I'll also be doing the outdoor fitness challenges. If Fernwood do Biggest Loser again, I'll give that another go. I think I'm going to be busy next year. :-)