My Bad

I had thought my knee troubles were already on their way out, otherwise I would not have run 12 miles on Sunday. Turns out, I was wrong. I was confident enough to run without a knee strap on Monday and within half a mile I knew I was in trouble. The right knee was really painful, but sometimes you just need to run for a few minutes to get some relief, so I continued on. The more I ran, the more it hurt. The more it hurt, the more I slowed down. Finally, after 2.5 miles, down to an average pace of 8:20 and by now basically in agony, I decided to try something new: I speeded up rather than slow down further, first to 7:20 pace and then to sub-7 (wind-assisted, as I realised at the turnaround point), and lo and behold, within 30 seconds the pain in the knee was almost completely gone! This was as close to a miracle cure as I have ever come.

The downside, apart from getting rather tired from the pace, was a pain in the left shin. Not shin splints, it was closer to the ankle. My best guess is that it was a follow-on injury, caused by a change in gait due to the knee pain in the other leg.

I made it back home, the pains in both legs eventually subsided during the day (cycling was entirely pain free, btw), so I tried my luck again on Tuesday, this time with the knee strap back on. I intended to run a little bit slower than the day before, but as it turned out I was doing virtually the same average pace, albeit in more even fashion. The knee was moderately painful, the shin was fairly bad.

At that point I really wondered why I was still running. I am not training for anything at the moment; rather unusually for me, I still do not have a goal for the rest of the year. As I am presently recovering from a marathon, I should just rest for a few days to let it all heal. After all, without a goal race there is no training to be missed.

It was raining heavily overnight, enough to wake me, and I decided to rest today.

Well...

By 6 o'clock I was wide awake, by 6:20 staring at the ceiling had lost its fascination and like the complete idiot I am, I got up, got dressed and went running.

Sometimes the stupid things are the correct things to do. Turns out, the knee pain was much better and the shin pain completely gone. I have no idea why. The one downside was a really high heart rate, which I can't quite explain. As I have been pushing my luck enough already, I'll keep things easy for another few days, keep the mileage as well as the heart rate low and try and stay away from the hills.

2 May

8 miles, 1:00:43, 7:35 pace, HR 153

3 May

8 miles, 1:00:39, 7:35 pace, HR 150

4 May

8 miles, 1:01:50, 7:43 pace, HR 154