A mixed week

I decided to give my knee a rest this week until Friday, in the hope it would be completely healed by then. Unfortunately not - and after 6 laps of Dulwich on Friday lunchtime much of the old pain was back. It's a dull achy pain, not a sharp "you must stop running now" one, so it is possible to run with it - but the nagging feeling I might be doing myself some longer-term damage remains. A bit of self-diagnosis via the web and advice from my wife who also runs, suggests it might be related to the ITB (the muscle which connects the hip to the knee) which frequent runners find stiffens up over time, causing the tendons attached to the knee to pull the kneecap slightly out of alignment - causing pain.


So I did some stretching of the ITB on Friday night and my knee did feel a little better by the following morning, so I set off for Greenwich with a plan of doing my 9 miles on the top tier of the park like last week, running on the grass as much as possible. I managed four laps (6 miles) but by then the pain was getting a little more acute and I walked for a lap to give it a rest. The pain having subsided a bit I managed another running lap for a total of 7.5 miles for the day, but a not very satisfactory outcome.


We then drove up to Oxfordshire to visit some friends, and after a couple of hours on the motorway with my knee in the one position it was again getting sore, and I didn't hold out much hope of doing the planned short run on Sunday morning. However I did plenty of ITB stretching and when I woke up today my knee felt distinctly better. So after 6.5 laps of the nearby park (pictured) later I felt decidedly more cheerful. While my knee wasn't pain free, it felt better than it has for a while.


So my plan is to give it some more rest again this week until Friday, maybe try it out with another gentle run in the park (maybe 4 miles) and then if it is ok will give the scheduled 14 mile long slow run a go on Saturday.


In between my runs I had another swimming lesson on Thursday, which at least helps me get some exercise and shouldn't do my knee any additional damage.


Total miles for this week were 16.94 bringing my total for the year to 43.21.


(Looking forward to a future blog with no mention of knee pain).