Training

The knee seems to be holding up well, and today I upped the run to six miles without any problems. My legs aren’t getting as achey as I feared they might after the break in running, however my breathing has definitely taken a step back. I think for the next few weeks I’m going to concentrate on building my weekly mileage at slower paces before I worry about any speed work. Still, great to be back running without any injury worries (fingers crossed!)

The last assessment of my knee was perhaps a little optimistic, and the next day aches and pains had returned. Feeling rather fed up I initially decided to give it another week, but occasional niggles, along with a general apathy towards running brought on by this continuing injury and the awful weather lately, meant one week became three. Today though I was determined to venture out despite the 23º heat, and I’m over the moon to say the knee felt completely fine after two miles – no niggles, no aches, nothing! Fingers crossed it really is fixed now, and I get get on with training for my rapidly approaching half-marathon in October.

The past few weeks have been pretty depressing run wise. After a week of short 2 mile runs which didn’t seem to be allowing my knee to fully heal I decided to give it a week off and see what happened. However after over a week of rest my first run gave me knee pain within half a mile and I decided to give up and give it another week. The past few days really seem to have turned a corner with the knee so I set out for another tester today. Thankfully things finally seem to be getting there – there was a bit of a nagging ache after a mile or so, but nothing too bad and at the end of the two miles after a short walk any aching was totally gone. Fingers crossed!

My knee continues to improve – after the last run it felt almost totally fine the morning after, and today it was a lot longer in to the run before it began to ache. Nonetheless I decided to stay cautious and keep this run to just two miles. I treated myself to some new running shoes today. After trying a few different pairs on the shop treadmill I settled on some Nike Free 4.0 V2s – so far I’m really pleased with them, but looking forward to hopefully trying them out on some longer runs next week once my knee is sorted.

Unfortunately while my knee didn’t give me too much trouble during the Bupa 10K the day afterwards it ached quite a bit, so I decided to give it a few days to recover before attempting any further running. Unfortunately those few days expanded to over a week as my knee just refused to get better as quickly as I wanted. After a few days with barely a twinge from it I decided to give it a go this morning with a short jog around the River Severn near where my parents live. By the end it was aching a little, but a quick blast in a cold shower and some ibuprofen gel soon sorted that out. It’s hurt a little over the day, but as I speak now (10pm in the evening) it’s returned to being pain free. Hopefully this means it’s on the road to recovery. All being well I hope to attempt a longer run on Thursday.

I’ve spent the week worried, stuck between a rock and a hard place – both wanting to rest my knee ahead of my 10K race on Sunday, and also not wanting to let my training waste away by missing my final sessions. With my knee finally twinge free today I headed out for a short run to test it out and also make sure I was clear of the breathing trouble I had on Monday. Thankfully despite the heat I managed a decent pace without any major issues, which has boosted my confidence for Sunday. A nice quiet rest day tomorrow, and then time for my first ever running race. How exciting!

Since my last real fast run last Tuesday, my performance seems to have taken a real nose dive. My knee is almost completely fine now, with just the slightest ache after this run, but I really struggled to keep up the pace and had to take a breather at just short of three miles. I have had a slight cough so hopefully it’s just related to that.

I guess all I can do is take it easy for another couple of days and hope for the best. Having gone from hitting my race target to struggling after half the distance is rather disheartening though. I don’t have time to do another 10K before Sunday’s race now, so hopefully a good 5K run in a few days will help restore my confidence.