As my first month in Colorado comes to a close, I am more happy than ever with my decision to come out here to intern and train. I have already met quite a few people that I would not otherwise have come across and I have made a few friendships that I hope will continue into the future. It was a relatively uneventful week in the clinic. However, I did receive some news that has me very excited for the next couple weeks. On Tuesday one of the main patients progressed to his next level of rehab, which means that he is mostly done with soft tissue massage work and has moved to more exercises. There were also a few other patients who I observed through their exercise routine to make sure that they were doing all the exercises correctly and not risking injury with bad form. Also on Tuesday I helped someone with the Runeasi test again, this time on a runner who was coming back from a nerve injury in his leg. He wanted to make sure that nothing in his stride was a red flag in terms of future injuries. We found a slight imbalance in his ground contact force, but everything other than that looked great, so he was cleared to continue building mileage and intensity.
My site supervisor, Kurt, gave me two big pieces of information that have me excited for the upcoming month at the clinic this week. On Tuesday, he said that I would start having more responsibilities almost as a PT tech instead of an intern. Up to this point, I have just been observing and cleaning up after treatment, but he said that I would start leading patients through their exercise routines while he catches up on notes. He brought this up entirely on his own without me asking, so that makes me know that I am doing a good job with my current responsibilities and that he trusts me with more duties on my plate. Then, on Wednesday as he was leaving, I asked if I could tag along with him to the gym at some point over the summer. On Wednesdays from 1-3, Kurt does physio work for the On Athletics Club, a professional running team in the Boulder area with multiple Olympic medalists. As an aspiring professional runner, I would love to see how a team operates and what the difference in work is between the clinic and the gym. Kurt said that he will ask the coach and team if they are comfortable with that, but he seemed to think there is definitely a chance that I can do that in the future.
Wednesday at the clinic brought a Division 1 mid-distance runner who is recovering from a navicular stress fracture, and I was able to read the packet that the surgeon sent that explains the recovery process in great detail. In addition to learning more about the profession, it made me very happy that I have never had an injury of that severity. We also saw a few patients who are training for long bike rides or runs and more so receiving treatment to stay healthy rather than recovery.
In addition to OAC, which I mentioned earlier, there are many other professional or semi-professional running teams and clubs in the Boulder area. On Saturday my roommate and I drove up to Boulder to attend a “motion run” put on by one of the teams in the area, Tinman Elite. Not only were around 60 people from the community at the run but I was lucky enough to run 10 miles with three professionals, two of whom have represented the US at World Championship events! This is undoubtedly my highlight of the summer so far and might also be my favorite run of all time. I love to talk about running with anyone, so to be able to pick the brains of some of the best in the country and world was an incredible experience. I will certainly have an update in next week’s blog about my new duties at the PT, but for now, I am excited to see what the coming weeks bring.