Jan. 8: 3 mi w/ Kat

Jan. 9: 3 mi.; the Yard

My knee is starting to concern me again. I’ve learned to stop short of pushing it to the point where I feel the painful twinge I used to sometimes get, but I’m slowing to a walk way too early in my runs for this to keep up. The discomfort/pain is centered in the kneecap, and then radiates up and down the leg from there. It goes away almost completely when I rest, and doesn’t return until I run again. I walked about the last half mile of yesterday’s run with Kat, and today I planned on running four, but I was already walking after the first mile and a half and finally just cut it short at three. I was disappointed because I hoped that running on the flat grass would feel good on my knee again, but I think maybe I’m compensating for it now (not on purpose), because other parts of my legs were hurting more than usual even though I was running very slow. My lungs could have taken much more, but the legs just wouldn’t cooperate.

I plan to ask my coaches for advice at a non-running TnT get-together this Thursday. I’ve already adopted the habit of stopping to stretch about a mile into my run, and then stretching again when I’m done, and that seemed to work great until I ran some hills again, and a couple days rest between runs hasn’t been enough to get my knee back to normal. I tried icing it after running today, but couldn’t tell if it helped. It’s not like my knee is bothering me much between runs – just when I’m actually running, and for a short time right after I’m done. I’m hoping there’s something else I can do like maybe some resistance training that will make the knee more durable, or trying a brace. It’s nothing debilitating right now, but I would sure hate to take the “suck it up” approach and end up injuring myself to the point I can’t continue training and risk missing the event.