Friday, March 1, 2013

Runner's Knee & White Legs Swimming

It's been over two months since I last posted. Not doing too well at this blog thing!

In January, I ran the 3M Half Marathon. It went great. Nice run, nice people. I did not manage to PR on that race, but I only went over by a few minutes. At the end it was super cold and windy. No big deal, really. Just a nice 13-mile run with a couple thousand people.
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Well, then I was training up for the next half, the Austin Marathon and Half. 5 miles one Sunday went great. The next weekend, I took a spill off the mountain bike. Banged my knees, but no worse than ever before... then on a twelve mile run on February 3, something bad happened. At about mile 6, I started really getting a pain in my left knee. It hurt for the next. Six. Miles. Went to the doctor that week, and he took a look at my old creaky knee and proclaimed that I shouldn't run "as far or as fast." Angry cartilage, he said. 1) WHAT? 2) so exactly how far and fast shall I run? 3) WHAT?

So I took this to a sports physical therapy place here in Austin, and we are working on it. I still don't know what my running career looks like, but at least I have some hope. We're strengthening my hips and quads and working on getting nutrition to my knee joint. That involves several exercise including one they call tailgaters, like sitting on the tailgate, and swinging your legs up and down. This is supposed to flood my joint with some substance that it apparently likes. We shall see. I feel like they're making up this stuff, but hey. Can't hurt.

Meanwhile, I am really tearing up the pool. I'm probably getting 1800 meters in per week. I took a stroke clinic throughout February, and now I'm going to continue for Danskin training season. I can already tell I'm a lot more efficient in the water. Not dragging so much, and I'm using the big muscles and breathing better. I'm pretty confident that I will be able to swim the Captiol 2K in Town Lake on May 4. So, at least for now, these white legs are for swimming!

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