Wednesday, October 25, 2006

On the Sidelines for a Week

ORN: Tuesday: 3 miles, still some pain
Wednesday: zero

I did some research yesterday and decided to treat this knee pain as the so-called "runner's knee," an inflammation of the cartilage in and around the kneecap. The descriptions of it matched so well what I feel and the causes of it that I'm treating it as such.

So, I'm going to not run for seven days. Wow, will that be hard. But it is probably the best.

I'm going to be faithful on the ice and ibuprofin. I'll be consistent in stretching.

It looks like the move I made on the shoes also fits into a solution. The roll inward onto the forefoot lines up with the symptoms, as does the increased milage I put in leading up to the Portland Marathon.

Plus the breakthrough in my own mind was to now treat the upcoming Tecumseh Trail Marathon with Darrell as a long training run, not a race. Funny how that simple shift in emphasis helped me. Takes the pressure off for the long runs to preceed the race. Instead, it is "simply" a long run in iteself. And, hey, it may be a 20 mile run alongside Darrell and a 6.2 mile walk by myself in the woods, letting Darrell get the car warmed up. That will be OK as well.

So, that's the plan. And, since blogging does not strain cartilage, I'll be commenting here too.

Will be a different week. And we'll persevere.

5 comments:

Backofpack said...

Good attitude and good thinking. Enjoy your time off and hopefully you'll heal right up!

Running Chick said...

as you know, a healthy runner is a happy runner.

it won't be an easy 7 days, but keep you eye on the big picture!

(your 20-mile run, 6.2 mile walk comment made me laugh!)

Sarah said...

Sounds like a wise decision. Take it easy and hopefully you'll be ready to go in a week! : )

Unknown said...

Hopefully the rest will do the knee some good.

Darrell said...

This sounds like a wise choice. Knowing that no PR's will be set that day takes a lot of pressure off. Priority one is taking care of that knee. Take the week as a chance to catch up on other things that may have been needing your attention. If I had any sense I'd probably give my hip a week off too. Maybe after I make it through the trail 18k I signed up for this weekend.