556 - 560 I thought about quitting today


Thus goes the drama. I ran 7.7 on Sunday. Felt pretty good actually. The knee felt some vague, barely discernible discomfort. Until the next morning. Pain. Not a lot. Not as much as before, but it was there. I had scheduled my first physcial therapy session for today with my doctor-detesting thought that, "If everything feels fine after the 7.7 miler, I am going to cancel this thing." Great. Now I have to go. So I did. Conclusion from the doc is - Patellar Femoral Syndrome with a possible medial meniscus tear. The funny thing is the popping in my "bad" knee that occurred when he was doing a particular test was so similar to the popping in the other knee that he wasn't too sure. Thus we will do four weeks of PT and then if things aren't better its off to do an MRI and X-Ray. This is all nice and good but after its done, it comes down to that ill-fated conversation. Him - "You should stop running and do some other form of closed-circuit exercise, elliptical, swimming, cycling etc." Me - "Yeah so what about my training plan for an ultra?" Him /shakes head.

The voices say this: This whole thing is stupid. There are other bigger, better, more important goals. The irritation in the knee is just going to get worse. You are a moron for not resting and letting it get better. You are dooming yourself to more serious knee problems by not taking the proper course of action. Do what the doctors and every other piece of running advice ever written tells you to do. This whole streak thing really doesn't matter. Really. No one cares if you do some "junk" one miler every day.



Except me.




Its not in my control. There may be things that happen that change my mind. There may be things that happen that force me to stop running, against my will. I might even decide to stop tomorrow.

My decision today? Lace 'em up. You can take me off the course in a body bag.

p.s. Don't take off the shoes. I like my Saucony's.








556 - 3.0 in 36:32
557 - 1.0 in 14:12 with the li'l dooods
558 - 1.0 in 10:12
559 - 7.7 in 87:27
560 - 1.0 in 12:00

Comments

joyRuN said…
Ack! I'm so torn on this. While rest & cross-training is the best thing for your knee, you're on DAY 560!!!

How about you hop on the elliptical/bike first for about 30 min to warm up your muscles & strengthen your connective tissue then walk your mile?
X-Country2 said…
I'm with jobRuN on this. I really see both sides. Is this knee pain effecting the rest of your life? Once it starts doing that, you may have to give serious thought to the cross-training suggestion.
Nitmos said…
So....we can only pry your running shoes from your cold, dead feet? I think I saw that on the back of some pick-up truck somewhere. In Alabama.

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