Right Back Into It

Ok, I know this sounds weird, but I think that jumping right back into running is making my knee better.

I did my first run since the marathon on Sunday. It was a 5 miler, and I knew that if my knee was hurting I had a day to recover before my next practice (which is tonight). I, of course, took it easy, and I didn't run on the road, but the bridal path in Central Park instead. I fully expected my knee to hurt afterwards and then to really hurt on Monday. But that didn't happen.

So, I went on with Ramon's schedule for the advanced group, and instead of taking a night off (like the beginners and intermediates did), I did my cross-training.

My knee is still fine.

Not even a tweak.

I'm wondering if it was just too much distance, too fast. I mean, I did have to ramp up my mileage quite a bit to run the marathon since my schedule was all over the place this winter and I didn't really train properly. So I am just going to take it easy with the speed, stick to the schedule, STRETCH and stay extra vigilant about my knee pain.

My mileage for this week is pretty even, so I'm hoping my body can get used to it fairly easily. If not, I'll take a rest night or knock back the mileage.

Tonight I have a 5-miler with the TNT group. I signed up to be a sweeper for the intermediate/advanced group so that it would force me to take it easy (the sweepers hang at the back of the group and make sure no one is left behind). Tomorrow and Thursday are both 5-milers. Friday is off and Saturday is 6-7 miles. So, a 25-26 mile week already. That seems like a lot to me.

We'll see how it goes.

Overuse?

I'm not one who's really "tuned-in" to pain. I attribute this to my high-school cross-country days. Back then I had some major issues with my quads. I was in seeing the sports-medicine therapist (ok, how many hyphenated words can I use in this post?) just about every week. I also had back issues in college. I think because I was living with pain all the time I just kind of turned it off. I figured this out (with the help of a physical therapist) when during a PT session they asked me how much the pain was on a scale of 1-10 and I said "It's not that bad today...probably a three." I think I confused the physical therapist, because I basically could never tell him WHERE the pain was and I was always ranking it a 2 or 3, and never more than a 5. So he started feeling my muscles and I guess he found something because he said that he had seen a bunch of big football players come in who had less pain than I did with tears in their eyes. I don't know if that says more about the football players or the fact that I couldn't feel pain. His theory was that I had turned off my pain sensors because I was dealing with pain constantly. So he had me do a bunch of really lame (I thought) exercises that required almost no effort so that I could "turn my pain sensors on again." I don't know if any of this helped or not. But my point is, that a lot of times when I'm injured I don't realize it.

That could end up being bad.

So I try try try to be really tuned into my body and listen to it. I also know that I have issues with my left leg building up a lot more muscle than my right (even though I am right-handed). So I try to pay attention to that.

Last night I was scheduled to do my 5 miler on the course I am running this weekend with 3 short bursts of sprinting. When I got home and started putting on my workout clothes I realized that my right knee felt really bad. AND it was right on top of it. On the right side. Of course. I think it's my quads again. In the injury session I went to a couple of weeks ago they were going over knee pain and said that if you have that kind of knee pain, it usually means that your quads are not strong enough. Go figure.

I was pretty mad because I really wanted to run. I asked Bill what I should do. (Which means that I really knew the answer, but just needed to hear it from someone else.) He said that I was prone to overuse injuries so I should probably do something like yoga instead and ice it. Boo!

So that's what I did last night. I am hoping to get out and run tonight, but you know what? I don't think it is going to happen. My knee is still a little sore. Actually, it's just as sore as it was yesterday. So, I am going to do all of those exercises that the physical therapist LAST TIME told me to do, to build up my quads.

Gym Etiquette

Last night I hit the gym again for my 20-30 minute recovery run on the elliptical and I have never seen the gym so crowded! All the machines were taken except for the upright stationary bike. So I decided that I would bike until one of the ellipticals opened up. I was a little bit wary of the bike though, because those stationary bikes tend to aggravate my knees a little, which would kind of defeat the purpose of me working out in the gym instead of outside.

Well, 10 minutes into my 20 minute workout, I noticed that the elliptical behind me was open. Hurrah! I jumped on and started programming it. I had just started working out, trying to make up for my time on the bike by jumping into a harder pace than normal when a girl showed up next to me. It was the girl who was on the elliptical before and she said "sorry" and I gave her her keys that were left on the machine. And she was like "No, sorry. I put those on there to save that machine." I didn't realize that you could do that. Every gym I've been to, if you hop off the machine it is fair game for everyone else. And it's not like she was gone for 2 seconds to get water or anything. I mean I had time to look behind me, see it was empty, program it and start my workout. I was ticked off, which I guess she could see, because as I got off the machine she said, "I'll only BE a few MINUTES." in an annoyed sort of way. I thought about saying something to her, but then I realized that I was in the gym with a bunch of other residents that I was sure to run into some other time in the gym and I didn't want to be 'that crazy girl who went bullistic on that other girl'.

So I hopped back on the bike for another 10 and irritated my knee, which I didn't realize until I was finished. Back to icing and anti-inflammatories. Tonight is a rest night and I am going to take full advantage of it.

Elliptical

So, yesterday when I started my run, I noticed a sharp pain in my right knee. I turned around and ran back down the hill to see if it was still there, and it wasn't. But when I ran up the hill on the other side, it came back. I've never actually felt pain like that. It was on the inside of my knee and my knee pain usually comes right above my knee. I also didn't think it was a good sign that it was only in one knee.

So yesterday I took it easy. I iced it a couple of times and took some Aleve.

I decided to try the elliptical tonight (since my knee injuries are usually impact injuries).

The elliptical EXHAUSTS me. And it always looks like you aren't even moving on the elliptical, no matter how hard you are working. I set it to the crazy hill workout and threw in an 8 for resistance. 40 minutes and I was so tired!