First 3 months after surgery I was only allowed minimal activity. I could go for walks, and do functional PT exercises. My mobility was very limited, I couldn’t even raise my arm fully over my head.

Now, I am at about 90% mobility. I have regained some strength, but the doctor has me limited to only 25 lbs max with the right arm. But the best change is I can finally run! After 3 months of no cardio, it feels really good getting back out there. My legs have no endurance, it feels like I’m starting from scratch. But I do think a lot of that is just my high expectations for myself. I’m running 5-6 miles on the trails, and feeling tired after that. So I’m definitely not in Ultra shape currently.

My goal is to be able to do a 50K by May. It’s a big leap forward to go from not running at all to an Ultra in 3 months after being cleared to run. Giving myself a goal will help me stay focused. I can’t do any OCR obstacles right now, it’ll be a couple months before I am cleared to hold up my bodyweight. Even then I will have a lot of work to do to get back to what I was. So for now I’m just focusing on my trail running and becoming a better runner. The Run Fluent program I follow will get me where I need to be. I just need to be patient. I kind of want to run every day, but I know that is not good for my legs.

It’s gonna be a lot of slow steps getting myself back to the racer I was before this surgery. But I’m gonna put in the work and try to come out of this even better than I was before, and pain free!