Back on the Track - Part 2

Hello Runners!,
Today was my first day back on the track after my knee ailment.  With my knee still a little tender, I wanted to just "ease" into some speed work.  I started off with my normal, 2 mile warm-up.  I stretched a bit and had no knee pain so I decided to give the track a go.  My plans was to start off with 2x800 with ~3min rest between.  I wanted to start off with 800's instead of 400's because I run my 800's at a slower pace, thus putting less pressure on my knee.  I ran both 800's at around 6:40 mile pace, or in 3:50.  My legs felt pretty good so I ran 2x400 at 90 sec pace.  This pace was significantly slower than previous 400's, where I was running 75-80 sec quarters.  Regardless, I finally got back into some up-tempo running and my knee hasn't been acting up.  I made sure to ice and rest my knee immediately after the run.  My plans is to do a short run tomorrow (Friday), rest on Saturday and hopefully get out for a 7-8 mile run on Sunday.  Assuming all goes well I plan on being back on the track on Tuesday (7/17) for a timed mile attempt.  Here's to resting and recovering well!!

Knee Strengthening Exercises

Hello Runners!,
I'm back up and running!  On Monday I had planned to run 2 miles and instead ran 3 because I felt so good!  Ok, that's a bit of a lie as I didn't feel great but my knee felt better than I thought it would, therefore I upped the mileage a little but still wanted to make sure I'm not doing too much too soon.  Yesterday I did a nice, slow 4.5 mile run.  Today, REST!


On Monday and again today I did a few knee strengthening exercises.  I found this nie little video on knee strengthening exercises on the Runner's World web site. I've since incorporated some of these exercises into my workout, with plans to perform these 3 times a week.




Tomorrow I'm back on the track.  My knee is still a little weak but it feels miles better than it did last week.  Therefore, I'm going to see if I can do a moderate workout tomorrow.  I would like to get on the track and run a few 800's at around 6:30-7:00min pace to see how my knee responds.  Any sign of discomfort and I'm shutting it down.  In the meantime, I'm going to continue to do some strengthening exercises and hopefully will get back into some speed workouts next week.  Once again, keeping my fingers crossed.  

Walk to Run

Hello Runners!,
I just finished a 2 mile walk.  It's my second day of testing my knee strength.  Yesterday I walked 1 mile.  I have to say, my knee is feeling somewhat better.  It's still weak and tender, but I was able to walk more or less pain free.  Tomorrow is Monday, and I'm going to try and start the week off by doing a 2 mile run.  SLOW.  I think I'll do a mile around the track and then take off my shoes and do a mile barefoot on the infield grass.  I'm hoping a little bit of barefoot running will help get me back to a more natural stride and help to strengthen my knee.  It's been a pretty demoralizing week and weekend just sitting around the house resting and icing my knee.  Therefore, I'm not really in the mood to write much about my training (or lack-there-of).  I'm pretty sure my injury is Runner's Knee.  The best way to recover - rest, reduce mileage, stretch, ice, and slowly incorporate knee strengthening exercises.  What are those knee strengthening exercises you may ask?  I don't know... because I haven't started doing them yet!  Ha!  As i figure out what kind of exercises to do, I'll make sure to post them in my blog.  Anyway, that's it for day, good night and good luck... running that is!

4th of July - Heat - Injury - Ugh!

Hello Runners!,
Happy 4th of July!  This is a great time of year.  Food, fireworks, beer.  I love it all.  What I don't love, is getting injured.  And that's exactly what happened to me a couple of days ago.  I finished off a pretty tough month of training in June and I was looking forward to keeping the trend going in July.  I started the month off by doing a 9.5 mile run on July 1st.  I felt great.  On the 2nd, I rode my bike to Riverside park, did a 5.5 mile run, and then rode home.  It was wicked hot on the 2nd and I was quite fatigued afterwards, but hey, I've been there before.  Then I woke up the 3rd.  My right knee was pretty stiff and sore.  As I was walking around the house I felt a pop in my knee (like cracking knuckles), and then another, and then another.  Not long after, I could barely bend my knee let alone push off on it.  Oh man, this sucks.  I more or less laid on the couch the rest of the day to rest my knee.  I'm not quite sure what caused my knee to give but I think it must be overwork.  I had a pretty intense final 2 weeks of June.  I had been doing some biking along with my running (sometimes on the same day) and i went golfing in 3 or the 4 days leading up to the injury.  

Fireworks in Wauwatosa.
I like the trailing bursts and the full moon!

Unwisely, I didn't give my knee any rest on the 4th despite the pain.  I should have just stayed home and laid on the couch all day, icing my knee and resting it.  Instead I went golfing.  It really didn't bother me for the first 6 holes but the last 3 were not great.  Thankfully we were in carts and I didn't have to walk around much.  After golf I drove 1.5 hours to Milwaukee.  This was not good for my knee.  The knee is stationary for almost the entire drive and it swelled and tightened up.  I watched the fireworks in Wauwatosa with a few friends (check out one of my fireworks pictures).  I then had to drive home today (another 1.5 hours of a stationary knee).  As soon as I got home I started to rest.  30 minutes of ice followed by 30 minutes off.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  i also took some ibuprofen to reduce the pain and swelling in my knee.  I'm a little concerned now that this injury might be something serious, keeping me sidelined for a few weeks.  Ugh!!  Just when my training was really starting to go well and I've felt significant improvement in my speed.  Right now I'm hoping that I'll just have to rest through the weekend and that I can get back into working out sometime next week.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!  Good luck everyone!  I hope you enjoyed your 4th of July holiday :)

June, the Month in Review

Hello Runners!,
The month of June is now over.  Overall, I would say it was a pretty successful month of training.  I had a few minor injuries/ailments that I worked around, but overall I'm very happy with the way my training went.  I finished the month with 138 miles, 16 miles fewer than I ran in May.  However, I also had 155 miles on the bike, including an 84 mile ride around Lake Winnebago in the Tour de Bago (if you don't know what that is, read my earlier post from June 17th.  I ran a 1500m race in 4:58, and my 4th timed mile came in at 5:19, a twelve second improvement from last months mile.    


I finished off the month of running with a 2.5 mile tempo run, 6 miles overall.  This was my first tempo run in a few weeks and it felt good to get out and do some speed work that wasn't on the track.  My first mile of the tempo was 6:27, I then picked up the pace and ran a 6:12, followed by a 3:10 final 0.5 mile.  Once again, it was ridiculously hot today (~90 degrees) but I'm starting to get use to the heat.  Yesterday (Friday) was a much needed day off from running.  On Wednesday my plan was to run 7 miles but I felt pretty good and added another loop to the middle of the run, making the run 9 miles.  In hindsight I should have only run 7 miles as I was pretty tanked by mile 7.  Thursday was another day on the track.  Considering I had a pretty hard week of training, I had planned for just a short but intense workout on the track.  The workout plan was an 800, 400, and 2x200.  I started with the normal 2 mile warm-up.  I ran my 800 in 2:31, ran a half mile slow to recover, and my 400 in 68 seconds.  I finished the workout with two of my fastest 200m sprints this season, in 32 sec and 33 sec, respectively.  A quick mile cool-down and that was all she wrote for Thursday's practice.  Despite Thursday being one of the hottest days of the week I felt good through the workout.


This upcoming week is the 4th of July week and I'm not really sure how that will affect my week of training.  I'm planning on getting in a long run on Sunday, something easy on Monday and then a hard workout (Slow Jimmy's) on Tuesday the 3rd.  I currently don't have plans for the 4th but I'm sure something will come up so I'm planning on Wednesday being a rest day.  I'll probably then hit the track again on either Thursday or Friday, followed by another moderate run on the weekend.  Hopefully that will be a great way to start off the month.  Goodbye June, let's have a rockin' month of training in July!