Ahhh, Finally, A Run

After a full second week off, and with only one (crappy) run in the last 12 days, I finally felt well enough to get back to the gym (on Monday) and start spinning back up. I had one of those 'fill your comforter with sweat' nights on Friday or Saturday, and started on the path to feeling better the next day.

Got to the gym about 8:45 and got started with my workout, first. My left knee, which, if you recall, acted up very badly last Monday seemed to be behaving itself with a week off, so given my self diagnosis of Runners Knee I hopped on the bike for my warm up. Holy effing crap, that hurt. You're supposed to be able to ride with runners knee. I did 5 minutes (88watts, 1ish miles), to get warmed up and it started to ease out a little, but I was really starting to pay attention to where the pain was coming from.

I had walked to Seattle Running Company (mile or so each way) at lunch to see if they had any good running books to help me train for the next few marathons. I ended up getting Daniels' Running Formula and a few magazines. One of the magazines had an add that implied that knee pain might be attachment points soft tissue, not the rubbing that is Runners Knee. I realized that most/all of the pain is actually on the surface of the kneecap, around the top edges. This is a more serious version of the 'bruised' feeling I've had before. The implication from the ad was that this was a thigh tightness/stretching issue. Needless to say I'm hammering on my thighs with the roller now.

Back to the workout...
Did the workout for a few weeks ago, adding straight leg raises for my thighs (supposedly really good for preventing Runners Knee). It hurt bringing my knee in and out of the bent position, but it started to work itself out. Did everything else, and added push ups at the end. one good set of 20 as I recall, then a mostly 'supported' set of push ups.

There were a bunch of trainers off shift doing their workout while I was doing mine. Just crazy. Plyometric jumps up to platforms, etc. One of the gals was doing deep squats holding a dumbbell to her chest. Best phrase I've ever heard for form/hard work: ATG - "Ass To Grass", her partner admonished her with that a few times.

Finally got in the treadmill, and my knee is actually mostly cooperating. Got on the treadmill and learned very quickly that my psychological endurance was more beat up than my physiological endurance. This was a long, 'I wanna go home' kind of run. It didn't help that I had to run so effing slow again. Back to the beginning with some of this Base Training. Did

5 miles
max: 6.6 (blip)
lots at 5.6
min: 4.0 bottom
avg: 4.4

Other than my knee, I have these 'knobs/bones/protrusions on my feet just above my arch, below the ankle, and they have been aggravated for the last few weeks as well. This was a painful run for them.

Thank goodness for Pandora on the iPhone, because the selection of tunes in the 'iPod' just blows. I really need to spend some time getting a better batch of tunes loaded up