Sunday, December 11, 2011

Moday 5- Friday 9

Monday:
1 hour run at CCSF Track at a moderate speed. My knees felt a little rusty all day. I felt like my knees were rusty hinges that needed a little oiling. I was a little concerned about running but 20 minutes into the run i felt better than ever.
I feel that i'm getting into shape. I did not feel any struggle at all from the start to finish and did not struggle keeping up the speed at all times. I guess when i hit the trail is when i will find out if i'm progressing significantly. Energy was good, great day overall.
Tuesday:
30 minute fast pace run at the CCSF Track tonight. Knee has been funny for the last couple days and today wasn't the exception. Started out concerned but the concern went away after 15 minutes when my running motion was all i was paying attention to.
30 minutes of core, leg workouts, and stretching. I will start icing my knee to see if it's inflammation.
Wednesday:
I cannot catch a break! Today i ran towards twin peaks and about three quarters of the way (28 min) i had to turn around because the outer side of my left knee was hurting. This brought back font memories of that March 19, 2011 on Mt. Diablo 50K when on mile 25 the same problem stopped me from running and made me hike to the finnish line. Today, i hiked my way back home much the same as during that race with the exact same pain. As i stopped, i tried to stretch my IT band with my usual pole stretches with no success.
Later on after i showered and was heading to class i noticed that i had the same problem as the Mt. Diablo race walking down stairs. When i flexed my foot up and down was when the pain worsened. The pain was not excrutiating however; it was painful enough for me to make facial gestures of disgust.
Thinking about what could have caused this, i see a couple variables with nothing pointing out at anything directly. I had been ok for a while, as a matter of fact, i ran the Golden Gate 50K on july without experiencing any of this and with very little soreness and a fast recovery after the race. What have i been doing differently from what i was doing before the race on july?
1) Running a lot more and more often. I have been running nearly every day for the last couple months where before my race on July the training was running shorter more intense workouts.
2)Running in the city. Training for my race in July was mainly(90%) on trails and not on roads.
3)Running a lot faster. within the last weeks i have noticed i have been running 8min/miles sometimes below that and a lot of the times for long periods of time. My 30 minute run yesterday was at provably below 8 min mile pace for the entire thing.
4)Yoga & short intense workouts. Looking at a calendar i wrote activities in for the months of May & June i noticed that on the month of May i did mostly shorter more intense workouts as training. On June, i started running at Whales Cove Trail towards North Peak short 4-5 mile round trips. During that month i switched around this trail training and YOGA.

I have mentioned patience as a key habit to, vigilantly, keep a tab on during training. Especially when you are recovering from a serious injury. It is so easy to go off track or to forget to be patient as we become more fit.
Thursday:
Off, knee injury. I tried to figure out why i got injured and i think i found out why. First of all, i did not get injured yesterday, Wednesday, i got injured on Tuesday. Tuesday, as i wrote above, i ran a 30 minute run at an 8 min/mile pace; however, i was running at a sub 6 mile pace. In the moment i felt so good running at that speed. I guess this this is another personal experience to learn from and an area to work on. I need to learn to distinguish how a 6, 7 or 8 min mile pace feels like without looking at my watch. I already feel better, i am grateful this didn't turn out to be another multiple month endeavor.
Friday:
Off, knee injury. Had a good stretch using my SOCK! I thing it works. I was so stuck in my ways that stretching was a waste of time and today i was humbled and brought back to earth. I'm not glad i got injured but i am grateful for the things i'm learning from this 'little" injury.

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