I promise this is the last time I will talk about my knee

Bob


I've said this before, and I will say it again.  It is hard to write a running blog when you haven't been running.  Actually, this blog is about more than just running, but in my mind it is a running blog.  The problem with that is I do not find myself very interesting, so I feel like if I'm not running then who wants to hear about the rest of my life?  It is hard enough writing about me running.  Maybe I should write about other people running.  If anyone wants me to write about them running, please contact me and I will write about you.  Enough about you for now, let's get back to me for a change.  Shall we?  I have taken about 2 weeks off.  The knee was at the point where I just was not getting quality runs.  The weird thing is that I could still run, but I felt like I was hurting the knee worse.  I was just doing junk miles.  I have gotten into debates about junk miles.  Some people feel there is no such thing.  Any run is a good run.  I totally disagree.  When you are just going out to fulfill a streak, run through pains that could lead to a worse injury or to prove that you're tough, those are junk miles.  When you have no business running, but do, those are junk miles.  I, like many runners, have some ache or pain pretty much all the time.  I can run through those.  Always have, always will.  I almost always feel better when I run.  This time it was different.  It hurt before, during and after the run.  So, I rested.  That is a word that is kind of foreign to me.  Also strange, is I didn't really rest.  I still worked at my job.  We moved and I carried the majority of the furniture and tons of boxes up and down steps and in and out of houses for close to a week.  Lots of stress on the knee.  But it was okay.  As long as I didn't run.  This was actually good news.  I did not have an injury.  It was a nagging pain that has been nagging me for over two months.  I started rolling again.  I have all kinds of rollers, but my favorite is a tennis ball.  I can carry a tennis ball anywhere.  I have one in the shower.  I roll my feet while I'm taking a shower.  Just step on it and roll.  I started rolling my knee and the surrounding areas.  I found huge painful knots on my lower quad and upper calf.  I rolled the hell out of those.  It hurt, but it helped.  A lot.  I must add an addendum here.  I am not a doctor.  To paraphrase Woody Harrelson in the movie Doc Hollywood, "I could have been a doctor, but I don't like the sciences."  Something like that.  Well, I could have been a doctor, but I just don't like to study.  Or school.  Or most of the advice they give.  Sorry doctors, but I have never gotten any good advice from you.  When it comes time for me to need some real fixing up, I hope the doctor world doesn't hold that against me.  But when it comes to my general aches and pains, I fix myself.  I always find a way.  What usually works for me is to work through stuff.  Go back to basics, which in running and exercise means concentrating on strength and technique.  That is what I have been doing and it seems to be working.  And rest.  Yikes.  Rest to me means losing endurance...quickly.  A few weeks off and it is almost gone.  But, I can get that back.  I am really growing bored of this whole thing now.  Long story short, the pain is mostly gone.  The swelling and stiffness is all but gone.  I ran steps on Wednesday and it felt pretty good.  I was going to run with the group this morning, but quite honestly I'm tired.  I feel lazy and the house is warm.  I didn't feel like driving a half hour to run maybe two miles for a test run.  I will go to the track later and give it a shot.  Next week I'll be getting back to it and build up slowly.  There is a 5k at the end of the month that I am doing and that will be fun.  The end of February, we are doing the 20 mile trail run.  I want to be strong for that, because if I'm not my running partners will leave me to die somewhere on that trail.  They are very supportive, but they will leave me to die on that trail.  So, I need to be ready for that event.  In retrospect, I wish I would have taken two or three weeks off after the marathon.  I probably could have avoided this whole mess, but I am not a patient person and I wanted to run.  I have to admit something.   That marathon beat the shit out of me.  The next one won't.  Stronger, faster, better.