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It Takes a Runner to Know a Runner in Durham, CT

If you’re a runner dealing with an injury, choosing the right physical therapist matters more than you might think.

Not just someone who understands anatomy.
Not just someone who treats runners occasionally.

But someone who has actually been a runner—who has trained, competed, broken down, adjusted, and found their way back.

Because running injuries don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist inside training cycles, race timelines, identity, and months of work that you don’t want to throw away.

Running Is More Than Just Exercise

If you’ve trained for anything significant—a half marathon, a marathon, an ultra—you know this already.

Running isn’t just about fitness.
It’s about:

• Structured training blocks
  
  

• Carefully built mileage
  
  

• Long runs you plan your weekends around
  
  

• A race that represents months of discipline
  
  

So when an injury shows up, the question isn’t just:

“How do I get rid of the pain?”

The real question is:

“How do I protect everything I’ve built while addressing the injury?”

That nuance is often missed in traditional rehab settings.

Why Being a Runner Changes the Way I Treat Runners

As both a physical therapist and athletic trainer—and as someone who has trained seriously as a runner—I approach injuries differently.

I understand:

• What it feels like to be late in a training cycle
  
  

• The difference between early-cycle, mid-cycle, and taper-phase injuries
  
  

• The mental weight of being told to “just stop running”
  
  

• How quickly fitness can be lost—and how much can be preserved with smart planning
  
  

That lived experience matters.

It changes the first conversation entirely.

Instead of starting with what you can’t do, we start with:

• What race you’re training for
  
  

• Where you are in your training cycle
  
  

• How close you are to race day
  
  

• What matters most to you right now
  
  

Because sometimes, abandoning training isn’t the best first step.

Can You Still Race While Injured?

In many cases—especially when you’re within a month of race day—yes, it’s possible to maintain a surprisingly high level of fitness and still perform well if things are managed correctly.

That doesn’t mean ignoring the injury.

It means:

• Strategically adjusting running volume
  
  

• Using cross-training to preserve aerobic capacity
  
  

• Managing load instead of eliminating it
  
  

• Making targeted decisions instead of emotional ones
  
  

When done right, you can often arrive at the starting line:

• Fit
  
  

• Confident
  
  

• And far closer to your potential than you’d expect
  
  

This kind of decision-making comes from having lived through those same trade-offs as an athlete.

Rehab Isn’t Just About Healing—It’s About Timing

An injury at:

• Week 4 of training
  
  

• Week 12 of training
  
  

• Or three weeks before race day
  
  

…are completely different problems.

And they should be treated that way.

Having trained and raced myself—and having been injured at different phases—I understand how to tailor rehab to the moment you’re in, not just the diagnosis on paper.

The goal isn’t just to get you pain-free eventually.

The goal is to:

• Get you to the starting line when possible
  
  

• Protect the work you’ve already done
  
  

• And still give you a high-level outcome
  
  

If You’re Training for Something That Matters

If you’re dealing with an injury and:

• You’re training for a major race
  
  

• You don’t want default advice to “just stop”
  
  

• You want a plan that respects both your body and your goal
  
  

Message me “Starting Line.”

I’ll give you an overview of how we can tailor a plan specifically to:

• Where you are in training
  
  

• How close your race is
  
  

• And what’s realistically possible given your injury
  
  

Because when it comes to running…

It takes a runner to know a runner.

It Takes a Pickleball Player to Know One in Cheshire, CT

Any physical therapist can treat a pickleball injury.

But not every physical therapist understands pickleball.

And that difference matters more than most people realize.

On the surface, pickleball doesn’t always look demanding. The court is small. The rallies can be controlled. The movements seem simple.

Until you’re actually playing.

Until you feel what your Achilles has to do when you step back hard to load up a forehand.
Until your knees feel the repeated deceleration as you sprint up to the kitchen to chase a soft drop shot.
Until you realize how often the sport asks for quick starts, sudden stops, and awkward positions that don’t show up on a treadmill or a leg press.

As a physical therapist, I can assess strength, mobility, and tissue capacity.

As a pickleball player, I understand how those pieces get stressed on the court.

That’s where real rehab—and smarter return-to-play—happens.

Why Sport-Specific Understanding Changes Outcomes

Pickleball injuries aren’t just about what hurts. They’re about how load is applied.

When someone tells me their Achilles is sore, I don’t just think about calf strength or tendon capacity. I think about:

• How often they’re stepping back aggressively during play
  
  

• How many matches they’re stacking in a week
  
  

• Whether they’re playing singles, doubles, or both
  
  

• How long their sessions last—and how intense those rallies are
  
  

That context changes everything.

There are times when you can keep playing through an injury—with the right adjustments.
And there are times when pushing through will quietly set you back weeks or months.

Knowing the difference is the art of rehab.

Load Management Isn’t “Stop Playing”

One of the biggest mistakes I see pickleball players make is assuming rehab means sitting out completely.

Most of the time, it doesn’t.

But it does mean understanding:

• When you can modify volume instead of eliminating play
  
  

• When intensity matters more than duration
  
  

• When certain movements (like repeated explosive step-backs) are the real aggravators
  
  

• When your body is adapting versus when it’s accumulating damage
  
  

As I’ve become more consistent with pickleball myself, I’ve felt my own training aches and pains show up—not as injuries, but as signals.

My Achilles reminds me how much elastic demand this sport requires.
My knees remind me how often pickleball asks for rapid deceleration in shallow angles.
And those experiences directly influence how I guide my patients.

Because I’m not guessing.
I’ve felt it.

Rehab Works Best When You Understand the Game

This is why “graduating from physical therapy” doesn’t always mean being ready to play pickleball at full speed.

Strength numbers can look good.
Mobility can look restored.
Pain can be minimal.

But if your body hasn’t been prepared for the specific chaos of the court, the injury often lingers—or comes right back.

Rehab isn’t about being cleared.
It’s about being confident stepping onto the court knowing:

• You understand your limits
  
  

• You know how to scale volume
  
  

• You know when discomfort is acceptable and when it’s not
  
  

That’s what it means to have a guide—not just a clinician.

It Takes a Pickleball Player to Know One

Pickleball isn’t just a hobby for many people—it’s community, competition, and identity.

When you’re injured, you don’t just lose activity.
You lose connection.

My goal as a physical therapist who plays pickleball isn’t just to get you out of pain.
It’s to help you stay in the game—smartly, sustainably, and with confidence.

Because when your therapist understands the sport,
they don’t just treat the injury.

They treat you as a pickleball player.

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

The other day, I ran my first timed mile in years. I clocked a 5:39—off of just running a few miles here and there each week. And honestly, it felt great.

But then my mind went to my younger self. Back in college, I ran a 4:04 for 1500m. And the thought hit me: “Wow, I could have just lapped myself.”

In that moment, I went from feeling proud to feeling discouraged.

Every time I catch myself making a comparison like that—one that pulls me into a downward spiral—I try to spin it back up by remembering the bigger picture. At 36, I’ve got three kids, a full-time job, and all of life’s stress to juggle. And I’m still able to get out there, carve out time for myself, and put up a pretty decent mile. That’s worth being proud of.

This same mental trap shows up in rehab all the time.

Maybe you’re finally moving pain-free after an injury. You’re back on the court or on the road, and for a moment you feel good… until your brain reminds you how fast you used to be, how much farther you used to run, how many balls you used to chase down.

Consider this reframe:
👉 Each pain-free day is a win.
👉 Consistency is what rebuilds capacity—not one heroic workout.
👉 The first training cycle back isn’t about finding your ceiling, it’s about creating a floor.

Too often, people try to push to see “how far they can go” right away. That leads to peaks and valleys—progress followed by setbacks. Instead, you need to let your body stack training cycles. That’s how you go from little wins to big ones, without getting knocked back down.

If you’re stuck in that cycle of comparison and frustration while trying to come back from injury, message me. Let’s talk about how to get you back on track—so you can not just get back to where you were, but build something even stronger.

Stop comparing, start reflecting.

Proactive Care > Reactive Care in North Haven, Wallingford, Durham

Here’s the reality: you have two choices when it comes to your health.

 Reactive care: You wait until pain forces you to stop. By then, training has to be scaled back, you’re stuck doing corrective basics, and it takes weeks (or months) to get back to where you were.

Proactive care: You notice the small nags and don’t ignore them. You check in before things break down. With a mix of manual therapy and corrective exercise, we can keep your body moving well, prevent setbacks, and keep you chasing your goals without interruption within a session or two.

The difference?

• Reactive = starting over.

• Proactive = staying on track.
  
  

Most athletes and active people don’t realize how much easier it is to stay healthy than it is to come back from injury. Proactive care keeps you doing what you love — and keeps frustration out of the process.

Think of me as your go-to teammate for long-term health and performance.

Smarter Care in Westbrook CT

For people who love to go, go, go, being active feels like the only way forward. But sometimes, the harder we push, the more problems we create for ourselves—and that’s where recovery comes in.

I had a client recently who was telling me that he does his home exercises four days in a row. By day four, he always feels like he needs a break because his body starts to flare up.

He’s a former baseball player, so I framed it this way:
“Would you have done heavy upper-body lifting four days in a row during your playing days?”
He laughed and said, “No way—that wouldn’t let me recover.”

So I asked, “Then why push your rehab exercises that hard, that often?”

At first, he thought doing more would get him better, faster. But when we paused, he realized recovery wasn’t something holding him back—it was actually the missing piece.

We created a new game plan: alternating exercise days and recovery days, or splitting workouts (core → legs → rest). That simple shift turned his week into a sustainable cycle rather than a grind.

The next time I saw him, he told me his pain was so much more controlled. He didn’t feel like he needed to take three days off in a row—because he was already recovering in the right way.

The lesson? More isn’t better. Smarter is better. Recovery is not a waste of time—it’s part of the process. And sometimes it takes an outside perspective to put things in context and help you line up your training with your long-term goals.

That’s what working with the right physical therapist can do.

Training Consistency > Training at the Ceiling in Madison, CT

One of the biggest struggles I had when I was constantly chasing PRs was this:
I was always trying to find the absolute ceiling of what I could tolerate without getting injured.

And honestly—that’s natural.

When you’re motivated, competitive, and driven, you want to squeeze every ounce of potential out of your training. You want to see how far you can push things. You want to prove you’re tough enough.

The problem was that I lived right at that ceiling.

Every training cycle, I hovered just below the line… until I punched straight through it. Injury after injury followed, and each time I found myself starting over instead of building forward.

Eventually, things changed when I reeled myself back.

Instead of forcing 70-mile weeks, I settled into a more sustainable 55–60 miles per week. On paper, it looked like I was doing less. In reality, I was finally doing what my body could recover from.

And the funny thing?
My times got better.
Season after season.

Why? Because I could finally string training blocks together.

Looking back, a lot of my struggle came from being young and constantly comparing myself to teammates. I told myself, “If they can handle this mileage, I should be able to too.” I equated toughness with volume and ignored the fact that bodies respond differently to load.

That mindset dragged me straight into the injury cycle.

Competition is important. It can elevate you.
But without balance, it becomes the very thing that holds you back.

Here’s the truth most athletes don’t hear enough:

If you’re starting from scratch every season because you’re injured, your body never accumulates enough high-quality training time to create long-term adaptations. You’re not building momentum—you’re resetting it.

That’s why the professional runners and elite athletes we admire aren’t just talented—they’re consistent. They’ve figured out the right blend of training stress and recovery that allows them to operate near peak performance without constantly tipping into injury.

They’re not always training at the ceiling.
They’re training at their optimal load.

And that optimal load looks different for everyone.

If no one has ever had this conversation with you—about what your ideal training volume and intensity actually are—message me “training load.”

We’ll talk through your training history, injury patterns, and future race goals, and create a plan that doesn’t just help you survive your next race…
but helps you show up at the start line healthy, confident, and performing at your best.

Consistency isn’t soft.
It’s how real progress is built.

I’ve been in your shoes before.

I grew up playing just about every sport, but eventually I found my passion in track and cross-country.

I loved the purity of it — the harder I worked, the better I became. My success didn’t depend on anyone else. That lone-wolf mentality made me feel unstoppable.

But the same thing that drove me to succeed also made me vulnerable. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I thought it showed weakness.

I thought being tough meant pushing through pain, and as a result, I had nearly every running-related injury you could imagine from during my high school into my college career.

Part of it was me not wanting to ask for help. But part of it was also that no one around me really knew how to pull me back when I needed it. 

I had to be "tough,"  the grinder, the one who never quit — but what I actually needed was someone to sit me down and say:
“Being tough isn’t helping you, it's hurting you.”

That wake-up call didn’t come until early in my professional career as an athletic trainer. I luckily had a supervisor who saw that mentality and called me out; forced me to face it. I’m so thankful she did, because if she hadn’t, I would have continued that pattern,  and even if it made me successful in some areas, it would have ruined other parts of my life.

It changed everything for me. Not just how I approached my own health, but how I treat my patients. 

I realized that recovery isn’t just about exercises and treatment plans — it’s about the human connection. You have to meet people where they are, connect with them, and earn their trust so they don’t feel like they’re going at it alone.

If you’re someone like me — maybe driven, but a little stubborn — I get it. 

And I want you to know: you don’t have to do it alone. Asking for help isn't weakness, it's the mature form of strength. 

If you need more than just a handout of exercises, if you need a human to guide you through recovery and keep you from sabotaging your own progress, I can be that person .