I am currently in a type of physical therapy called "work conditioning" or "work hardening." It is considerably more involved than regular physical therapy. A typical day consists of a warm-up of a twenty-five-minute treadmill walk, workouts on various weightlifting machines, picking up heavy boxes and either lifting them, lowering them, walking with them, or (in rare cases) dropping them. There are also some other extras to confuse the muscles, such as climbing up and down stairs, pushing a small box of metal weights, and pushing a makeshift sled with a bunch of cinder block inside of it. My therapist, Barbara, has a keen sense of trying to mix up the various disciplines to get the maximum effort out of the session and working toward a slow but steady progression. Barbara is also an accomplished runner; she has qualified for the Boston Marathon this year and has run several marathons in the past. It is good to know that I can ask her about my recovery "runner to runner."
I have not tried a training run yet; something of a fearful combination of not knowing if I can make a certain pace or distance, being caught under surveillance by the wonderful worker's comp insurance people, and flat out not having any goals to base my training on. I am hopeful to be both back to work and on the roads again very soon.
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