Turns out driving a jet-ski isn't as scary as I thought!
Hanging out with Michele and Little Leah
All the girls with our lovely artwork
Love you Mom!Anyway, Michele and I went running while we were there. I don't know why I keep trying to run with her. She kicks my butt every time. I had a surprising problem on this run, though. Running downhill hurt my knees. Boo. I walked for a bit, then they seemed fine. So I ran a little over three miles. It was a tough run with almost 100% humidity and more hills than I expected, but I didn't think anything of my knee.
Then when I tried running on Tuesday, it hurt my knee so badly that I couldn't do it at all! So I've been riding the stationary bike and working on strength conditioning all week. I tried running yesterday, but it still hurt (though not as bad as earlier in the week), so I cut the run short.
My knee doesn't hurt at all during regular activity, except walking up and down the stairs and running. The pain is just below the kneecap, and I don't see any swelling. I think that it is either patellar tendinitis or patellar tracking disorder. I haven't been to the doctor, because it's not debilitating and he'll just tell me to ice it and quit running. I definitely need to focus on strengthening my quads and hamstrings, and stretching. Sometimes I am too impatient to stretch, which obviously is leading to bad results!
I'm not too worried about the knee, and I am hopeful that it will be cleared up in time for my half marathon training group, which starts on August 29. In fact, this is probably a good time to take it easy on running and focus on cross-training, strength training, and stretching since I won't have as much time for those over the next few months.
I'm sure that some of you have dealt with injuries before, so what's your advice? How long do you stay off it? Do you run through the pain, or does that just make the injury worse?
Netto,
ReplyDeleteI had a few problems when I was training for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler this Spring. I started feeling some sort of pain in my heel and along the bottom edge of my right foot. I did some research online and it seems like it might have been the beginnings of plantar's fasciitis. What I ended up doing is taking a few weeks off of training (eek! Scary thought, I know, but it def. helped!) and I got new running shoes. I also tried doing some exercises with a tennis ball on the bottom of my foot. But you're right, stretching is REALLY important, I think. I also get impatient and only really like to stretch after I run, but its just as important, even maybe MORE to do it before you run. Maybe you'll get more used to it when you run with your group?