Run 91, 2008

After almost three weeks without running (my last run was Nov. 2nd, 2008), I thought, holy crap! That’s enough time to heal an elephant, so I had to go out and test my knee again. Of course, it was dark when I went out so I strapped on my headlamp and toque, and off I went 4.5 km to the trail head then 2.5 km of in the dark trails. I have to tell you I don’t much like running in the dark even with a headlamp. And since there is no snow, it’s even darker. But the stars were cool. I can begin to appreciate how much “fun” Sarah had in the last leg of the Death Race last summer.

Anyway I was very disappointed in that my knee/IT band problem came back again right where it left off three weeks ago. So I am at a loss. Well, actually I’m not really at a loss. I’m just very frustrated.

But I have a plan. By the way, THANKS SARAH for your story of your year off because of injury and for your support. It helps and it helped me to formulate a plan.

My plan is to run around screaming and waving my arms in the air. After I get tired and fall down, I’ll babble for a while about how hard my life is. Then I’ll curse and swear and blame it on everyone else.

The next step will be to begin stretching the area to keep it limber, and work on strength exercises while I wait for the MRI. Once the MRI results are in I’ll take it from there, but also I will likely go back to see my ART practitioner because last time he fixed up my recurring calf muscle pull quite nicely and he also gave me advice on how to keep running while it was healing.

For now all I can do is stretch, strengthen, and keep running but seriously shorter and slower distances. I mean really shorter and slower. I guess this years attempt at record breaking fast runs and distances is at an end. I did not succeed in breaking the 60 minute 10 km barrier (though I came close, within 5 minutes), and did not put in my 1610 km I wanted to this year which would have made it 1000 miles. I guess I’ll have to wait till next year. Next year, there are two marathons planned.

And of course, I should be practicing for my upcoming karate grading to Green Belt in just a couple of weeks.