Marathon Preparation (Frank’s Story)

This is a first-hand account shared with us by Frank Ferrante about his work to get back to marathoning after some physical challenges. You can watch the video and read the transcript to get the full story.

Frank Ferrante (Marathon Preparation)

I injured my knee last year. I popped my knee out of my socket. It was a very weird movement. And I even went to an orthopedist. I thought maybe I tore a meniscus or something. He said, “No, you didn’t. It’s just, it’s one of those weird things that happens. You popped your knee out, you just need to rest. Take it easy. Don’t run.” He said, “Slowly get back into running.

This was in March. I had the Brooklyn Half coming up at the end of May. I rested for a little while. I didn’t run at all until the beginning of May and I did a couple of small runs for the Brooklyn Half. I did that and it killed me to do that.

My knee was hurting by the end of the finished race. I was God-awful slow. I was so pissed off, but I rested a little bit and I went back into running. So between May and October I was doing this foolishness, thinking I was okay. Not going to Noah (at First Health PT) number one, which is stupid. I was always in pain. I didn’t run again until the end of January. But this time I went to him before I started again. And I told him what I was doing and what happened last year. And he said, “All right, here’s what we’re going to do.”

First Health PT Recommendation

He gave me some exercises to do specifically for the legs. Some lifts and things like that to strengthen my knee. He said, “Probably what happened was (he said was the same thing that the orthopedist said), your leg muscles are so strong, they’re stronger than your knee. The connecting tissue around your knee.

And that’s why your knee was easy to pop out and you were able to pop it back in. But the damage was done, the inflammation and all your nerves were all just inflamed and they were all firing. They never had a chance to relax. Now that they’re relaxed we’re going to work on building up your muscles around the knee to be stronger, to match up all the other muscles in your leg.

So let’s do this for a couple of weeks. And after that, he said, “All right, now you can start running. And here’s what we want you to do. Only go to the track, run the straightaways easy, but walk the curves and start with the first week with just four laps. That’s it. And depending how you feel, add a little bit more. Maybe add another lap around. And then slowly cut those walks around a curve into maybe a half. We want to slowly build up your leg muscle.”

So I’ve been doing that. I also snuck in a couple of runs, that I had, but I didn’t run ’em fast. I did a couple of three and four-milers, easy and slow. And I consider those as my long runs for that period of time.

Accelerating the Pace

Still doing the three days a week, going to the track and, and doing all this stuff. Now, I’m doing two and a half miles on a track. I first start off with a slow walk, warm up, do the straightaways, and I walk around the curves. But then after that, I’m doing each lap slowly and each lap a little bit faster, a little bit faster, a little bit faster. Not full hard runs yet, but enough so that when I’m finished after two and a half miles I felt good.

You know, I felt like I actually had a run.

So these are the things that Noah helped me to reintroduce to get me back to the marathon. You have to slowly build your body back up. Don’t do it too quickly because if you do it too quickly, you are going to be back to square one again and you’re going to lose all that time.

My goal is I’d like to be able to run a New York marathon in 2024. So I’m thinking long-term now. I just did my longest run of the year, which was seven miles last Sunday. Did not run fast. And I had hills in that too. I live on the North Shore or Long Island and it was slow. I didn’t stop and worked slowly and steadily and that’s important. And my knee did not hurt, my back did not hurt when I finished. I wasn’t dog-tired. These are all good positive signs.