7.63 miles outside – great weather but very sloppy roads and trails – had to stop early as my knee was aggravated

Unfortunately I had to cut short my run this morning – the weather was great – right around the freezing mark with little to no wind. It felt great out there.

Unfortunately that also meant that the roads, sidewalks and paths I run on were not in great shape. There was a lot of slushy snow that slipped under foot, puddles hiding black ice underneath and frost in several areas. All things I have run in before and have adapted to. But about 5 miles in I could feel my right knee starting to ache a bit and by mile 6.5 it was getting a bit worse – at that point I figured I should cut my loop short and head home finishing out 7.63 miles in 1:14:26.

I decided to cut the run short due to some issues I had with my right knee and hamstrings back in the late spring early summer before the Manitoba Marathon. I have had ongoing issues with the knee right back to high school football (nothing serious) and it is usually really good but sometimes if I push it too hard it can get a bit wonky or start to hurt. Because that has happened quite a bit for me over many years my body has naturally adapted to compensate for that knee when it needs to. When walking, etc that is great but when running it screws with my form and can other leg issues.

This happened to me in the later stages of training for the Manitoba Marathon and I pulled my hamstrings in that leg when I was compensating. That cost me a few runs completely (including a long one). A few weeks before this problem occurred I had PR’ed the Winnipeg Police Services Half Marathon with 1:46:00 and I was ready to do a strong PR at the Manitoba Marathon. I recovered well from the injury but the knee acted up again during the Manitoba because I hadn’t given it enough chance to heal. I still PR’ed with 4:09:44 but if my knee hadn’t gone it would have been a sub 4 hour marathon.

So what I am saying is that I now get very nervous about running on my knee when it is hurting – especially now that I am in the last stages of training for the Dopey Challenge, I don’t want to repeat history! Maybe this old boy can learn his lesson? I wouldn’t count on it but at least I did the right thing this morning.

At this point I would rather back off on a run or 2 and prevent further aggravating that knee. Hopefully a bit of rest today will fix it up and training can continue as normal. I also have an 18 miler scheduled for tomorrow but the weather should be different enough that all the same issues should not occur with traction – plus I will be on a different route that I think is in better shape. We’ll see with that tomorrow but for now I won’t beat myself up for dropping a few miles today.