Earlier this year, as I set down my goals for 2019, I decided that I really needed to get some races into my diary. My last race was in May of 2018, a 10-miler in London that didn’t go so well as the winter was brutal and I hadn’t been able to train outdoors much. Spending the whole winter and most of the spring running on a treadmill had slowed down my pace and made my body unused to running outside. I’d also made the mistake of not checking out the course beforehand. For some reason, I had decided that a park in London must be flat, but it turned out that this one had several significant hills. The final hill on the course, at mile 7, nearly did me in. I actually got a cramp in my calf that almost made me submit to walking. I powered through, but both my time and my body reminded me that I hadn’t trained well.
As I looked at the calendar and what I wanted to achieve, I decided to check out either 10-mile races or half marathons in the coming months. With the news of the upcoming arrival of my first grandchild, the month of October was ruled out. Therefore, I looked at other options. I discovered a cute race in Illinois, on Chicago’s North Shore. Entitled ‘Fort2Base,’ it’s a race hosted by the military as a means of building better relations with the local civilian community. The distance is 10 nautical miles – which in ‘real’ miles is 11.5. The race is held at the end of August, and this seemed to work perfectly in both my vacation schedule and the other family obligations (weddings, birth-days and so on). Being just between a 10-mile and a half marathon, it also seemed just the right distance. I signed up and put together a training plan.
I decided to use a ‘real’ race training plan, and not just do my usual random training that includes a distance run, of increasing mileage, on Saturday or Sunday, and running 3 to 5 miles the other 5 days. I found one online that included intervals, which I usually hate. However, if I needed to recover my pace from running on the treadmill all winter, I figured there was no better way than adding in intervals to my training plan. Knowing my past history, I also decided that I would do the intervals on the treadmill where I would be unlikely to cave in and just do a regular run. My high school track days haunt me, and even though running in place on a treadmill is bad, I loathe running around in circles on a track. My plan was set – intervals, building up to 50 minutes over the course of the 12-week plan on Mondays, followed by varying distances during the week, Friday’s off and a long run on Saturday or Sunday (with a short run on the other day). The plan also included a 5k race in mid-July (to work on my speed) and a 10k race in early August a few weeks before the big event.
Upon my return from my Memorial Day vacation to Louisville, I got right into my plan by jumping off the deep end, and doing a 30-minute interval run. I made it through the first week of the plan, albeit I wasn’t as good about getting in the upper body weight training that I also put in my plan. As a runner, my first and foremost efforts are going to be around my running, and if I don’t have time for the weights, then I just don’t do them. In any case, the weeks were going by, and I was on track for building my mileage. Overall, I felt good – I had mapped out several nice loops around my neighborhood that could accommodate the distances I needed to do. I wasn’t in the position of having to do ‘out and back,’ which I dread almost as much as running on a track. There were a few days, early on, of yucky wind and rain, as well as dense fog in the morning, that put me on the treadmill, but most of my runs were outdoors, and I was pleased to be back running outside (and feeling good). My pace was slower than I would have liked, but I figured that over time, I’d get faster – especially with my interval Mondays thrown into the mix.
Things were look good, until my left knee started getting a little sore 3 weeks into the plan. It wasn’t a sudden thing (like when my big toe froze up and triggered plantar fasciitis and a bone spur), but sort of a nagging pain. It wasn’t tendinitis (I had that in college and know exactly what that feels like). I started taking Advil at night to help deal with the stiffness and pain in the knee when I was trying to sleep, and carried on. Per my usual course of action, I went to the chiropractor and asked her to check my hips. I knew that oftentimes, pain in my legs were caused by my hips being off-kilter. She checked, but nothing wrong there. She said my ankle was a bit out of alignment, but nothing major. I followed this up with a sports massage, but neither of these stopped the pain. The knee was getting sorer, especially after sitting for long periods, or at night, where I found that there was only one position I could lay in that didn’t cause pain. Strangely, once I was warmed up, it didn’t actually hurt while I was running – it was just afterwards, when I had cooled down, or after sitting for a while.
As I prepared for my hiking trip in the Appalachian’s, at the end of June, I decided to bring my running gear, just in case I had time to do some runs. I had put it into my plan that I’d be off on the 4 days of my trip so as not to cause me undue concern or worry about ‘losing’ time, but building mileage still takes time. I flew to Atlanta on a Tuesday and stayed overnight at a hotel before departing on the organized part of my trip. Wednesday morning, my knee was still feeling sore, so I decided to just do the elliptical at the hotel instead of a final run before the hiking started. That exercise seemed to make my knee feel worse. Then, on the hiking trip, we loaded up our packs and went out on the trail. Fortunately, we were using hiking poles (the trip was designed to be instructional on using them), and I found that they actually helped – especially going downhill – to alleviate pressure on my knee.
After two days of hiking with full packs, and restless nights where I struggled to find a comfortable sleeping position, I decided to start icing my knee. The guides were worried that I’d injured it there, but it clearly wasn’t the hiking that caused it. The pressure of walking on rustic trails, with additional weight on my knees, due to the fully loaded pack, was making matters worse. Even with the help of putting my weight on the poles when going up or downhill, my knee was letting me know it wasn’t happy. Now, I knew that something was wrong, and 4 days off running hadn’t helped at all. Of course, I hadn’t really taken 4 days off, I had just shifted from running miles to hiking, but that aside, it certainly wasn’t getting any better.
Once I got home, I jumped right back into my training plan. On Monday, July 1, I was back to intervals – now at 50 minutes. Tuesday, I got out and ran 4 miles. Wednesday, my knee was not at all happy, so I did a 6-mile run on the treadmill, splitting it up into 2, 3-mile segments, with upper body weights in between. By now, I was in a lot of pain and finally admitted that I better stop my training, and think about having it looked at. I had another massage with deep stretching, and found that I really wasn’t tight (I easily had full range of motion). I made another chiropractic appointment, and everything was per usual. I decided to do a hike on 4th of July, and went off to the Des Plaines River Trail near my apartment. It was very well groomed and relatively flat. I didn’t take the full hiking pack, and the biggest weight was the camelback with 2 liters of water. My knee put forth a steady reminder that it wasn’t happy, but I did the hike and completed a 6-mile loop. After another painful night, I decided that I better not try running the rest of the weekend. I did a few walks, back and forth into town, and tried out the recumbent bike in the apartment gym, but I stayed off the running until I could get in to see a doctor.
On July 10, I finally got an appointment with a sports physician – I wanted to ensure that whomever I saw was at least going to be understanding that running is critically important. I didn’t want a ‘regular’ doctor that would tell me, ‘if running hurts, stop doing it.’ The first stop of the appointment was X-ray, where they took views of both knees. The doctor pulled them up, and to my surprise, and delight, there was no sign of arthritis and the bones are in good alignment. This surprised me since my ‘toe issue’ had been related to arthritis in the joint, and I was fully prepared that my knees could have the same sorts of problems. Given that I’ve been running for most of the last 37 years, and that I have ‘all original equipment,’ I was thinking that this could well be the end of my running. So, even though the X-rays didn’t give the answer to why my knee was in so much pain, they did give me hope to a return to running once the problem was identified and treated.
After reviewing the films, he proceeded to do a physical exam that was incredibly painful. Given where the pain was located, he surmised that it is a torn meniscus, and ordered an MRI. We discussed the worst-case scenario – minimally invasive surgery. However, that surgery requires 3-weeks off running to prevent sweat getting into the incision and creating an infection. Given that I’d already stopped running on July 3, and that it would take at least another week to get the MRI, not to mention when I could get surgery scheduled, I told him I assumed that meant no race on August 25 (not to mention the 5k on July 14, or the 10k on August 1). There’s simply not enough time to build up to 11.5 miles by the end of August. He agreed, but told me I could do whatever exercise didn’t cause pain for now.
I’ve got the MRI scheduled for next week, while waiting for insurance to confirm they’ll pay for it. In the meantime, I’ve returned to the gym and began using the bikes (and upper body weights) there. Of course, I don’t own a real bike now, having donated my old one to the Syrian refugees in the UK prior to my return to the US. Just last weekend, I was telling some new friends that are into cycling that I knew I’d eventually buy a new bike since it’s a nice option for some of the trails in Illinois. I told them that I didn’t like the idea of having to get all the other stuff that goes with it – helmet, gloves, car rack and so on. Given that running just involves my shoes and a Garmin, getting back into cycling seems such a major investment. Now I’m wondering if I should just bite the bullet and invest in a new bike. I’m not ready to hang up my running shoes, but if I must stop for a while, cycling seems a good alternative until I can get back on my feet (literally). And, with this group of friends, I do have people to show me the local bike-friendly trails.
I’m not happy about it, but it looks like my plans for the 2019 summer running season are officially scrapped. I’ve got the Napa Valley Half Marathon next March, and that has become my target for recovery and a return to racing.
