Getting back to running after knee surgery

We’re gearing up for the Memorial Day Holiday here in the US. I hope you and yours are able to enjoy some time relaxing, some sunshine, and some time moving in the outdoors. If you wouldn’t mind mentioning this newsletter to a running buddy, a friend, or a family member who might be interested, I would greatly appreciate it! It helps us grow and gives me more incentive to keep going! And since you’re relaxing, you might as well do it in a super comfortable tee that conveys your love of the outdoors, like the ones we design and craft in our OutdoorEndurance Etsy shop.

As I’m now about 5.5 weeks after knee surgery, where a partially torn meniscus was repaired arthroscopically, and am just getting back to running in the past few days. The direction from the Dr. after surgery was no running for 6-8 weeks. To be honest, after years of being a daily runner, the first few days after surgery were rough. Not that I was in a bunch of pain. I wasn’t really. I did have quite a bit of swelling and stiffness (which is still lingering a touch). But what was so rough was the mental shift in trying to adjust from running every day, to not running for a couple of days in a row, and becoming somewhat overwhelmed by the thoughts of ‘how am I going to be able to keep this up for 6-8 weeks?!”.

Each day was a re-adjustment of expectations, and overcoming the mental aspects as much as the physical. After about 10 days, things started to get better in terms of the mental approach to it all.

After doing basically no physical activity for the first 2 weeks after surgery day, I got out for a 3 mile walk on a flat rail trail/bike path. It felt great to be outside and moving, albeit slowly and with some stiffness in the knee. The particular time of year that the recovery is happening is also making this extra difficult. I LOVE spring, love getting outside onto the trails and into the mountains after the long winters we have here in Vermont, where most of the training is on the roads or inside. So being cooped up inside recovering from surgery while the sun was shining warmer and the snow was melting out on the trails made it a tougher pill to swallow. But the joke’s on me…I could have done more to accelerate the entire process that led up to the surgery, from getting a second Dr opinion, scheduling the MRI, arranging work travel to allow for a sooner surgery, and so no.

2 days after this first walk, we went out for a 3.7 mile hike on some local trails (did I mention I was itching to get out on the trails ☺️). While it was a ton of fun and felt so good to be outside and moving, I think I overdid it on this one. The trail had some elevation and some technicality, and I was hauling a child for some of it. The next couple of days were pretty chill as the knee was kinda grouchy from the hike.

Halfway through the following week, now about 20 days since the surgery, I went for another 3 mile mellow hike. This one was special since I was in Tuscon, AZ for a work conference so a colleague and I went out to Saguaro National Park - check out em catcuses!

It was also a strange time to be in AZ since the Cocodona 250 was taking place where we were there, albeit a bit further north. I was cheering on Vermont’s own Aliza Lapierre who was in the lead for the majority of the race. She was ultimately overtaken by Sarah Ostaszewski who had an incredibly consistent race. But I digress…

Back in Vermont later in the week, and about 3 weeks post surgery, I did a casual 2 mile hike one day, an easy 6 mile (mostly downhill) bike commute the next day, and then a 20 mile gravel ride the following day. I had been putting off doing the bike since it was feeling uncomfortable in the few times I tried riding around the yard. It was mainly due to stiffness and lack of mobility, so that when my knee was bent close to 90 degrees in the pedal stroke, I had some discomfort and a slight touch of pain. But I started easing into the bike more at about this 3 week point and was able to start with slow pedaling, then giving it a bit more force over the next week of riding.

In week 4, I did an easy 20 mile ride on Tuesday, a couple of walks of about 1.7 miles on Friday, and gravel bike rides on Saturday and Sunday. By this time things were feeling much better on the bike. Walking and hiking was ok, but if I would go for a walk and then be on my fee most of the day, I would definitely feel it in my knee at the end of the day, with some swelling. Time for the ice!

Week 5 was another week of slow but steady improvement. Walks on Monday and Wednesday (about 4 and 2.8 miles, respectively) and then 25 mile gravel rides on Thursday and Friday, plus some more shorter rides on Saturday and Sunday. This Sunday (about 5.25 weeks after surgery) was when I first tried some running. I just did it in our lawn to keep to a soft surface. I set 15 minutes on the watch and did 1 min of gentle running followed by 1 min of walking. It felt pretty strange to be running again. The form felt kinda awkward, and there were some unusual feelings in the knee. It was pain per se, I just think it was moving things around that hadn’t been moved for 5.5 weeks, after being really messed with during surgery. For the first few hours after that, the knee felt good with a touch of stiffness. Then later in the day it felt great, no residual effects to speak of. A couple of short gravel rides later in the day kept the knee moving and flexible without the impact.

The following day (start of week 6 and just 2 days ago) I got back out to the trails for a longer sustained run-hike. I did a total of about 4.7 miles in 1 hour. I didn’t follow a specific timed regimen but rather just did some gentle running when it felt right and hiked when that was better. All in, it was about a 50-50 split in terms of time spent doing each. I also saw a huge deer and a black bear on this run/hike which kept things spicy!

So as I sit typing this on Tuesday, 5.5 weeks post surgery I’m happy with where things are with the knee. It’s still now 100%, I did feel some stiffness and swelling after yesterday’s run/hike but overall that is to be expected. I’m planning to do every other day of shorter hikes or light runs as the body feels up to it, and just keep playing it by ear. Incremental gains.

Here are the total stats in terms of time since surgery:

Week 1: no activity

Week 2: 6.6 miles of walk/hike

Week 3: 5 miles of walk/hike, 26.8 miles biking

Week 4: 3.5 miles of walk, 46.7 miles biking

Week 5: 6.8 miles of walk, 1 mile of run/walk, 67.8 miles biking

Week 6: 4.7 miles of run/walk (after 1 day)

I wish you all a safe and happy holiday weekend. Get out there and enjoy the trails!

Ricky