When I woke up this morning it was raining and there was lightning associated with the weather a bit further south. I had 18 miles on the schedule this morning so I did not want to be well away from the house and have that lightning get closer.
So with that I decided to get on the treadmill. I was hopeful that it would be a good run – I did about 30 minutes of deep water running yesterday in the afternoon and that really seemed to help my hamstrings out. Was hoping then that they wouldn’t be an issue…they weren’t! My right knee on the other hand went off on me almost immediately.
I tried a variety of different paces and that didn’t help – the knee still was hurting significantly. So I tried a couple different pairs of shoes which did not help either. Next I tried on our 2nd treadmill (there is a story there on why we have 2 treadmills) with the same result. Finally I had to give in and go find my knee brace and put it on. That seemed to help as long as I kept things slow and steady.
All of this happened in the first mile of running – like I said the knee was off almost immediately.
I kept trying to push the speed with the knee brace but had to keep backing off – things got pretty dark about 20 minutes in but I managed to convince myself to at least finish 30 minutes.
Amazingly by the time I hit the 30 minute mark I had managed to settle in and get at least somewhat positive. I knew another 200+ mile month was out of the picture but I figured I would push as long as I could and then take a break and push some more miles tonight to try and get close to the schedule for the day.
Felt good at an hour and was quite positive. At about 1:15 I figured I would push out to 11 miles and then I would only have to do a 7 tonight to get my schedule. By 1:25 I realized I was going to have to stop at 10 miles instead – so I pushed out to 10.05 in 1:30. Respectable pacing for a long slow run but not the distance I was hoping for.
Did a bunch of stuff through the day and after an early supper I had to accept that a second run today was not going to happen. My knee isn’t aching when I am sitting or standing but it does ache a bit when I walk and it feels week when I climb stairs. I felt it wasn’t wise to give it a push and cause real damage.
3 weeks today until my first half marathon this fall (the Fort Garry Rotary Half Marathon) and I need to get healthy. Time to step back and research my knee and hamstring issues (I believe they are related – my knee feels week or hurts and I change my stride to compensate and my hamstrings get hurt) and figure out the best way to fix things. I’m pretty sure I am going to have to strengthen that knee and that leg in general. I used to lift weights at a gym regularly but have gone the route of body weight resistance exercises lately (dips and chin ups, etc) and I think it is time to find the best leg exercises and get those in the mix too.
Ahhh fun. Back to the drawing board!
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