Sweet relief

Today was my first and only day of running this week. Despite my best intentions, circumstances kept me off the track.

When I started running seriously in 2012, I did so in full knowledge that I had a torn ACL in my left knee. I learned to run with the understanding that I had this fundamental instability, and no matter how strong I felt, the worry of injury resulted in substantial compensation by the right side of my body. I didn't always perceive it, but I carried myself crooked, heel-striking with my right foot and forefoot-striking with my left.

It wasn't really a problem, I figured, and I got by just fine.

Last summer, my bad knee forced my hand. I tore both menisci sometime in June, fought through my leg of a half marathon relay in July, and consulted with a surgeon a few weeks later. He had me in surgery by the end of the month.

After so many years of movement compensations and crookedness, it was a mixed blessing to have this enormous reset button, in the form of knee surgery. I had no choice but to sit down and heal. I had no choice but to begin again, this time with a repaired knee. I was back at square one.

Learning to move straight, each leg working as intended, was an eye-opening experience. Rehab went well, and I was back to jogging slowly in only a few months. I hired a trainer to help keep me on track after my physical therapy ended, and she was able to pinpoint the source of some of my long-seated problems. All those movement compensations had left me with an overpowered right quad and a strong, overly-effective left hamstring. My legs were, to some degree, opposites of each other. It was no wonder that, many months after my knee had healed, I was still favoring different legs for different tasks.

(To this day, I still step down with my right foot on the curb. I should learn to get over that.)

It should come as no surprise that what begins in the legs rarely stays there. "The leg bone's connected to the hip bone," and all that. Though I've managed to mitigate and repair some of the imbalance that I carry through my legs, I've become acutely aware of the problems that have taken root in my lower back.

Specifically: My pelvis hitches up on the right. Left unaddressed, it causes a pinching pain just to the right of my lumbar spine, and the muscles in that region are so tight that it's hard to lean to the left. I discovered this situation as I trained for the marathon last year; spending so many miles on the roads brought what may have been a minor issue to the forefront. I got weekly chiropractic adjustments for months, but finally had to give up my self-admitted chiro addiction around the holidays.

It felt a little worse every day. First, the tightness. Then, the tightness became pain when moving in certain ways. Last night, I could no longer lean to the left while sitting. Finally, this morning, standing square and upright made me wince.

And so today, it was time to reevaluate my finances (and my priorities). I called my chiropractor's office a handful of times this morning - they're "By Appointment" on Saturdays, so I was gambling on when they'd be in - and I cruised my sad little spine over as soon as they gave me the go ahead.

The relief was immediate. And amazing. So I went for a run.

I'm no preacher of the miracle of chiropractic medicine. I know there are people who don't appreciate the discipline, and there are people who have visited and perceived no benefit. For this body, though, it makes all the difference in the world.

TL;DR: When you find something that works, stick with it. The body is a fickle thing, and we all need what we need in order to perform our best.