Week Ending May 28, 2011

"Ouch, my knee hurts!" That right there was the theme for the week. I still don't know what I did to my knee, but it hurt all week. There must have been a 'pre-injury' on Saturday or Sunday. On Monday I ran up Barr Trail and my knee sort of ached as I went up. It felt like someone was clutching/pinching my knee with a tight grip. Not a big deal and nothing to be worried about... I thought. On the way down, I stepped on a boulder at a bad angle and it sent shock waves right up my leg from foot to knee to hip. After that, I was in real pain and had a long way to run downhill. I wanted to do a double that day, and decided to go for an easy run in the afternoon. The clutching/pinching feeling was there for the entire run. Tuesday I couldn't run. I couldn't even walk normally as I had a limp. My knee felt like a water balloon was surrounding the bone and under the skin. It was not swollen, but it sure felt like it. I mean I couldn't walk up or down stairs normally and had to take them one stair at a time. No pressure on the left leg. I iced it a few times and hoped for the best on Wednesday. No running Wednesday although the leg felt better. I actually tried to run that evening and for the first 5-10 seconds, I thought 'Oh yeah, this feels fine. I can go 10 miles' and I only made it about 200 yards before the pain kicked in. I couldn't believe it because I still didn't know what I did. Hitting that rock on Monday could not have caused this much pain. Peter Maksimow called me to go running on Wednesday and I told him the story. I also remember telling him I thought I would run Thursday and if I wasn't 100% by then, I would be 100% by Friday. More ice. No running on Thursday and more ice. On Friday I forced myself into a four mile run to see how it would hold up. Same pain. Not being the smartest guy in the world and not following common advice (hey, I already took three days off, right?), I decided to run again on Saturday. I ran 8 miles and had the same pain. More ice. Oh man, I hope this gets better quick because I have Mount Washington and the US Mountain Running Championships coming up. 34 miles for the week.