Monday, September 7, 2009

What to do, what to do...

There has been all of this talk about knee pain in the blogosphere lately and I think i am having sympathy pains... Thanks Glaven & CJ...I have not had any major knee pain throughout my training program...last weeks 22 miler really put it on me. I ran a 5 mile tempo run on Thursday and everything seemed fine. Sunday we did 11 miles. The first 5.5 miles went effortlessly. I was setting the pace, we were cruising at about a 10:15-10:30 mile. We stopped for a quick water/bio break and headed out for teh second loop. At about 2 miles in I started getting this all to familiar pain on the outside of my right knee. I wanted to stop but continued to tell myself that it would go away. The pain never left but did dull after a while. After I got home, I iced it for a good 20-30 minutes, this helped greatly.

What I am really worried about, is the fact that I leave for Alaska in a week; I run my marathon in 11 days. I don't know if I should reduce my training runs to less than 5 miles for the next 11 days to allow my knee to rest more....I will turn this over to anyone with more experience...Any suggestions?

4 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Sorry about the knee, brother.

I didn't do it to you, so you know for a fact now that it must've been that d*ckwad Carolina Cletus. I say you should "pay him a visit". Get a couple shots in for me, when you do.

During our recent vacation at this like resort in Vermont (or as I like to call it, Teh Great Concavity), there was this guy there who was training for a marathon. Now, as is (or should be) well-known, Teh 'Bride won't let me run a marry, not that I want to, but still, she's vigilant about keeping me away from anyone who might influence me.

So I had like one confab with this guy the whole week, and it naturally turned to running and he claimed you could train for a marry just as efficiently if you ran shorter distances (5-7 miles) and did them as intervals - ran all-out for 5 minutes, then slower for 5, etc.

I have no idea if this is true. And I have no idea if there was more to this than that because Teh 'Bride somehow arranged it so I never had a second conversation with this guy.

She's that good.

Carolina John said...

As usual, Glaven is an idiot. can't stop blathering on about his vacation while the rest of us were slaving away. and he has no clue what's happening with your knee. dumbass.

Pain on the outside of your knee usually indicates a strain on the IT band, a tendon that runs from hip to knee. It's an overuse problem that some say is the most common running pain. I think my hip pain is also ITB related. The solution is stretching and relaxing. My pain really got noticable after a 6 mile run, so there's not as much benefit as you might think to keeping the runs at/below 5 miles.

Since you are in the taper anyway, just follow your plan. bail on any run when the pain starts to show up, keep your eyes on the prize. sunday's 11 miler is not as important as the equinox, don't be afraid to bail out on something like that.

Google "IT Band stretches" and do some of whatever you can find. Also if you can get to the gym work the adductor and abbductor machines (i know you normally only see chicks on those) as people who don't work those muscles typically have ITB problems.

Glaven's a dubmass, it's worth repeating.

Anne said...

If your marathon is in less than two weeks, you should be tapering anyway so greatly reducing mileage won't hurt. You've put in your time. Keep icing and taking it easy. You'll be amazed at what fresh legs can do for you. If you continue to run with a swollen IT band, you won't heal in time for the big race.

Georgia Snail said...

Thanks for the advice...