I've been quiet because I didn't run, and I didn't run because my knee hurts. It's not looking good. I've been doing strengthening exercises the whole week, icing it and elevating it, and resting as much as a mom of two can rest. It was slowly getting better and I was planning on doing a test run on Sunday, but it suddenly got worse on Saturday without me doing anything special.
Saturday and Sunday it was really bad, and getting worse towards the evening. In the morning it's always better, but not for long. I went to the doctor again and I'm scheduled for a MRI scan on Wednesday, I should hopefully have the results by Thursday.
I am really bummed about this whole story, but I am not giving up just yet.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Baker's cyst
Yep, that's my diagnosis. Yesterday I felt for the whole day a lot of pressure in my knee, and it kept increasing as the hours went by. This morning it was a lot better, I almost had no pain at all so I was hopeful but it didn't last long. As the pressure increased again, after breakfast I decided it was time to be seen by my doctor (yesterday the assistant dismissed me on the phone). Made the appointment, went there around lunch time and came back with the diagnosis I was fearing. Runner's knee I was already prepared to deal with, but this? My doc suggested in a subtle way that maybe I should give up the idea of running a marathon, but she knows how much I want to do this so she didn't completely shut the door.
Looking back at my history, I have a score of 1-1 against doctors who didn't give me big chances of achieving something, looks like this is going to be the tie-breaker.
I'm torn between a warrior's reaction and very negative feelings. What are my chances? How do I deal with this? I will cut down the mileage now, no long runs until this heals, but will it come back when I start building up again? Is it ok to do some strengthening exercises now? will it help at all?
And above all... why? I built up my mileage slowly, I followed the program, I even took the walk breaks... WHY?
Needless to say, I'm not running today.
Looking back at my history, I have a score of 1-1 against doctors who didn't give me big chances of achieving something, looks like this is going to be the tie-breaker.
I'm torn between a warrior's reaction and very negative feelings. What are my chances? How do I deal with this? I will cut down the mileage now, no long runs until this heals, but will it come back when I start building up again? Is it ok to do some strengthening exercises now? will it help at all?
And above all... why? I built up my mileage slowly, I followed the program, I even took the walk breaks... WHY?
Needless to say, I'm not running today.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
17km
Saturday night I was shivering under the blankets, all of my joints were hurting and my temperature was 38.5C (that's 101.3F). I un-programmed my alarm clock, I knew I would not have been able to get up the following morning at 7am and go running, no point in waking up then.
I didn't feel much better on Sunday morning, but at least the temperature was a bit lower. I read a bit about what to do if you have to skip a long run, and opened my training program file to reconfigure it but... I just couldn't get myself to do it and postponed this operation for a little longer. After lunch I had made up my mind: I would go out and just do 3 of my usual laps instead of going far away, so that if anything went wrong I could always turn around and head back home relatively quickly. My husband tried to stop me, but he soon understood it was no use.
I took it very easy, with a 1:1 ratio (1 minute run, 1 minute walk) and everything was good for the first two laps. At that point I wanted to finish my run, but the last 5km were hard. The sun went down, and so did the temperature. I started feeling very cold, especially my hands even though I was wearing gloves, I tried skipping some of the walk breaks but it didn't help much against the cold, and I was starting to feel feverish again. But I simply had to finish, and finish I did.
What during the final kilometers had been a mere annoyance, after a couple of hours became just plain pain: my left knee again. I had run on Thursday with my old shoes, and that had proven to be a mistake so I decided to switch to the new ones for good. As I write this on Monday afternoon, my knee is still very sore, though I can walk without problems and go (easily) up and (less easily) down the stairs. I need to schedule strengthening exercises in my program, it's the only way to really take it seriously and do them regularly. I think I will also rearrange my training program to avoid any long run for the next 3-4 weeks, so that my knee has more time to fully heal while I work on my muscles and also so that I don't have any long run during the holidays, which would realistically be at high risk of cancelation.
I think I proved yesterday that I am not looking for easy excuses to skip my workouts, but I also think I need to shift my focus for a while and concentrate on my knee now.
I didn't feel much better on Sunday morning, but at least the temperature was a bit lower. I read a bit about what to do if you have to skip a long run, and opened my training program file to reconfigure it but... I just couldn't get myself to do it and postponed this operation for a little longer. After lunch I had made up my mind: I would go out and just do 3 of my usual laps instead of going far away, so that if anything went wrong I could always turn around and head back home relatively quickly. My husband tried to stop me, but he soon understood it was no use.
I took it very easy, with a 1:1 ratio (1 minute run, 1 minute walk) and everything was good for the first two laps. At that point I wanted to finish my run, but the last 5km were hard. The sun went down, and so did the temperature. I started feeling very cold, especially my hands even though I was wearing gloves, I tried skipping some of the walk breaks but it didn't help much against the cold, and I was starting to feel feverish again. But I simply had to finish, and finish I did.
What during the final kilometers had been a mere annoyance, after a couple of hours became just plain pain: my left knee again. I had run on Thursday with my old shoes, and that had proven to be a mistake so I decided to switch to the new ones for good. As I write this on Monday afternoon, my knee is still very sore, though I can walk without problems and go (easily) up and (less easily) down the stairs. I need to schedule strengthening exercises in my program, it's the only way to really take it seriously and do them regularly. I think I will also rearrange my training program to avoid any long run for the next 3-4 weeks, so that my knee has more time to fully heal while I work on my muscles and also so that I don't have any long run during the holidays, which would realistically be at high risk of cancelation.
I think I proved yesterday that I am not looking for easy excuses to skip my workouts, but I also think I need to shift my focus for a while and concentrate on my knee now.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Perspective
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Just the simple act of running in the other direction dramatically changed this run. All of my references were gone, and I realized how important it is to know the route you run on. Yes I had the Garmin and I knew exactly how long I had already done and how long I still had to do, but I found out that the running brain is much more content with real objects rather than with abstract numbers. You get a kick when you see the finish line, not when you know it's half a mile away. Point taken: study the course of my marathon very well, not just look at it once.
Other than this, the very familiar roads seemed very new when seen "in reverse", and I even discovered that from a certain point of my route you can see all of the landmarks of this town: the church bell tower, the windmill and, towering above them all... the radio antenna of the police station. I know... romantic, isn't it?
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Sunshine, rain, hail, wind...
Easy run, 7km
My usual Tuesday run was postponed to today because my daughter was a bit sick, she had had high fever during the weekend and was still shaking it off. Yesterday we also had some interesting weather: it started nice and sunny in the morning, and it suddenly turned nasty in the afternoon. We've had hail the size of a cherry pit!
Today my husband worked from home so I took only my son with me in the stroller, since he likes to sleep in it and he needed a nap. The wind was very strong but the sky was clear when we left. Not even 10 minutes into my run (son was already asleep) the sky turned dark grey and it started to rain, and the rain quickly turned into hail although this time, luckily, it was very small stones. I immediately turned around to go back home, thinking what a pity it was that I had to cut my run so short.
Well, you could just leave the boy and continue running.
There she is again... and once again she's right.
By the time I got home the sky was clear again, but to play it safe I parked the stroller (and my sleeping son) in the backyard, and took off again.
I had 4km more to go: two long and difficult kilometers against the wind and two easy and short kilometers with the wind, but at that point I was pretty tired so my speed didn't really change much.
Today's workout had probably more effect on my mind than on my body but hey... you need a very strong mind to run a full marathon.
And Little Voice is definitely getting stronger.
My usual Tuesday run was postponed to today because my daughter was a bit sick, she had had high fever during the weekend and was still shaking it off. Yesterday we also had some interesting weather: it started nice and sunny in the morning, and it suddenly turned nasty in the afternoon. We've had hail the size of a cherry pit!
Today my husband worked from home so I took only my son with me in the stroller, since he likes to sleep in it and he needed a nap. The wind was very strong but the sky was clear when we left. Not even 10 minutes into my run (son was already asleep) the sky turned dark grey and it started to rain, and the rain quickly turned into hail although this time, luckily, it was very small stones. I immediately turned around to go back home, thinking what a pity it was that I had to cut my run so short.
Well, you could just leave the boy and continue running.
There she is again... and once again she's right.
By the time I got home the sky was clear again, but to play it safe I parked the stroller (and my sleeping son) in the backyard, and took off again.
I had 4km more to go: two long and difficult kilometers against the wind and two easy and short kilometers with the wind, but at that point I was pretty tired so my speed didn't really change much.
Today's workout had probably more effect on my mind than on my body but hey... you need a very strong mind to run a full marathon.
And Little Voice is definitely getting stronger.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Little voice wins
6,5km Easy Run
7:30am, the alarm goes off. Hmmm. I was bad yesterday: had a beer and went to bed late (midnight is very late for me) because we had a guest.
Do I really want to go out and run in this cold, grey and possibly wet Sunday morning?
Oh, come on, it's just for a short run.
Exactly! It's not an important long run, it's not too bad if I skip it.
But then it will be 4 full days without running.
So what... it's cold.
It's not that cold and you know it, you've already been out when it was much colder.
But maybe it's raining.
I don't hear anything, it can't be raining.
It's no use doing a Magic Mile today, no way I can improve my time with these legs.
Just get out of bed and let's have breakfast, then we'll see. And didn't you want to try the new shoes?
Humpf.
So I went downstairs carrying that little annoying voice inside my head, had breakfast and checked my training program. 6,5km easy run, it said.
See? It's not even the Magic Mile thingy, now go get dressed. You'll be back before anybody even wakes up, from the sound of it. (Snoring noises from all of the rooms)
And out the door I went with my new shoes. It wasn't that cold and it wasn't raining, but it was indeed a grey morning. There were only runners (me and another woman) and dog walkers (a few) out.
km 5,8. Maybe I'll cut it short now.
Come on... you really want to take the shortcut? Make it at least 6km.
km 6. You got all the way here, now arriving home 3 minutes earlier would not make that much of a difference, would it?
km 6,5. Little voice wins. I think I'll hear from you again next Sunday, when it's going to be 17km.
My knees were quiet the whole time. My right quadriceps (particularly the VMO, now that I know what it is) must have noticed the extra support in the shoe and probably needs to adjust to it.
7:30am, the alarm goes off. Hmmm. I was bad yesterday: had a beer and went to bed late (midnight is very late for me) because we had a guest.
Do I really want to go out and run in this cold, grey and possibly wet Sunday morning?
Oh, come on, it's just for a short run.
Exactly! It's not an important long run, it's not too bad if I skip it.
But then it will be 4 full days without running.
So what... it's cold.
It's not that cold and you know it, you've already been out when it was much colder.
But maybe it's raining.
I don't hear anything, it can't be raining.
It's no use doing a Magic Mile today, no way I can improve my time with these legs.
Just get out of bed and let's have breakfast, then we'll see. And didn't you want to try the new shoes?
Humpf.
So I went downstairs carrying that little annoying voice inside my head, had breakfast and checked my training program. 6,5km easy run, it said.
See? It's not even the Magic Mile thingy, now go get dressed. You'll be back before anybody even wakes up, from the sound of it. (Snoring noises from all of the rooms)
km 5,8. Maybe I'll cut it short now.
Come on... you really want to take the shortcut? Make it at least 6km.
km 6. You got all the way here, now arriving home 3 minutes earlier would not make that much of a difference, would it?
km 6,5. Little voice wins. I think I'll hear from you again next Sunday, when it's going to be 17km.
My knees were quiet the whole time. My right quadriceps (particularly the VMO, now that I know what it is) must have noticed the extra support in the shoe and probably needs to adjust to it.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Schoo's!!!
(Only a few will giggle at the title, sorry... it would take too long to explain years of schoo-ness)
5,5km Speedwork.
Yesterday I decided I could not postpone my visit to a good running store anymore, so I put the kids in the car and off we went. Before talking about that though, I'd like to share a little bit of history of my running shoes. I bought my first pair at Fleet Feet in Davis, California (insert here big sigh). Without any fancy computer equipment, the guy assisting me just gave me a pair of shoes and send me in the street to run for a few meters while he was observing attentively. The verdict came quick and easy: I needed shoes with extra arch support, and he presented me with a pair of Asics GT2120. I didn't run much in those shoes, maybe even less than 100km, but I did walk a lot in them.
A few years later, when I was already living here in the Netherlands and I was carrying my son in a giant sized belly, I started having problems with my left foot. I though the time had come to replace my Asics, and went to a store nearby which supposedly also specializes (among many other sports) in running. A probably not-so-experienced sales representative made me step barefoot on a sort of foot-scanner, and decided (based on my footprint only) that my feet were perfectly neutral. That's how I ended up bringing home a pair of Nike Air Pegasus + 26. They were nice and comfortable, but my problems continued so I ended up seeing a podiatrist who confirmed the overpronation diagnosis. I'll skip the odissey with the podiatrist and custom made inserts... in the end I got some otc inserts with arch support specific for running, and that solved all the problems. Until now, that is.
And we finally get to yesterday and to my visit to the Loop Centrum (sorry, all in Dutch but there's pictures), which I can only define as a runner's paradise. It's all only about running and walking. You don't shop by yourself (unless you want to), you are accompanied by a sales representative and advised in all of your purchases. I was lucky to be assisted by one of the owners: he interviewed me for about 10 minutes about my running habits, had a look at my old shoes, had a look at my footprint (by means of a glass plate) and made me run on their indoor track equipped with high speed cameras just to confirm what he had already said by looking at shoes and feet. I do have a tendency to overpronate with both feet, but my Nike with the insert were enough to correct the defect on my left foot, it was the right one which needed more support. So why is my left knee hurting? Maybe running mostly on the right side of the road (must do that when I run with the stroller) has an influence on this... or maybe not... who knows. I went home with those shoes that you can see up there (Saucony Progrid Omni 10), a pair of winter pants and a headband (those that cover your ears and forehead, not those Bjorn Borg style). I'm ready for the winter runs!
The shoes were the only new purchase that I didn't use today (though the headband went flying in the stroller after 1km, it had served its purpose, thanks) because I want to walk a bit in them first and then I will gradually switch. I will probably try them on Sunday, I have a short run anyway.
No problems with my knee, by the way, and I think the type of workout helped with that: after the warmup I did a sort of "Galloway interval training", 1 minute running pretty much as fast as I could, and one minute walking. All good, let's see what happens on Sunday and if my time on the Magic Mile improves with the new shoes. You never know what a good Schoo can do for you.
5,5km Speedwork.
Yesterday I decided I could not postpone my visit to a good running store anymore, so I put the kids in the car and off we went. Before talking about that though, I'd like to share a little bit of history of my running shoes. I bought my first pair at Fleet Feet in Davis, California (insert here big sigh). Without any fancy computer equipment, the guy assisting me just gave me a pair of shoes and send me in the street to run for a few meters while he was observing attentively. The verdict came quick and easy: I needed shoes with extra arch support, and he presented me with a pair of Asics GT2120. I didn't run much in those shoes, maybe even less than 100km, but I did walk a lot in them.
A few years later, when I was already living here in the Netherlands and I was carrying my son in a giant sized belly, I started having problems with my left foot. I though the time had come to replace my Asics, and went to a store nearby which supposedly also specializes (among many other sports) in running. A probably not-so-experienced sales representative made me step barefoot on a sort of foot-scanner, and decided (based on my footprint only) that my feet were perfectly neutral. That's how I ended up bringing home a pair of Nike Air Pegasus + 26. They were nice and comfortable, but my problems continued so I ended up seeing a podiatrist who confirmed the overpronation diagnosis. I'll skip the odissey with the podiatrist and custom made inserts... in the end I got some otc inserts with arch support specific for running, and that solved all the problems. Until now, that is.
And we finally get to yesterday and to my visit to the Loop Centrum (sorry, all in Dutch but there's pictures), which I can only define as a runner's paradise. It's all only about running and walking. You don't shop by yourself (unless you want to), you are accompanied by a sales representative and advised in all of your purchases. I was lucky to be assisted by one of the owners: he interviewed me for about 10 minutes about my running habits, had a look at my old shoes, had a look at my footprint (by means of a glass plate) and made me run on their indoor track equipped with high speed cameras just to confirm what he had already said by looking at shoes and feet. I do have a tendency to overpronate with both feet, but my Nike with the insert were enough to correct the defect on my left foot, it was the right one which needed more support. So why is my left knee hurting? Maybe running mostly on the right side of the road (must do that when I run with the stroller) has an influence on this... or maybe not... who knows. I went home with those shoes that you can see up there (Saucony Progrid Omni 10), a pair of winter pants and a headband (those that cover your ears and forehead, not those Bjorn Borg style). I'm ready for the winter runs!
The shoes were the only new purchase that I didn't use today (though the headband went flying in the stroller after 1km, it had served its purpose, thanks) because I want to walk a bit in them first and then I will gradually switch. I will probably try them on Sunday, I have a short run anyway.
No problems with my knee, by the way, and I think the type of workout helped with that: after the warmup I did a sort of "Galloway interval training", 1 minute running pretty much as fast as I could, and one minute walking. All good, let's see what happens on Sunday and if my time on the Magic Mile improves with the new shoes. You never know what a good Schoo can do for you.
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