Run for the Lakes Update

Well, I am one day out from Run for the Lakes and I am a go to do the race.

That said I am not exactly going into it with great confidence. Since my last post I have been dealing with constant knee pain and up through Wednesday I was really thinking about pulling the plug.

First some background, over the last 4 weeks, I was able to hobble through a couple of longer runs but they were not fun nor effective for giving me confidence that I could maintain a marathon finishing pace. The problem with the knee is after we returned from vacation each run seemed to hurt more. I was in San Jose last week and I went for a 4 mile run and got through it but it was a struggle. The next day I went to Rancho San Antonio and had to walk more than I ran and my pace was very slow when I did run. On Saturday I went for a 7 mile run with my daughter in Lebanon and that run pretty much told me that I was nearing a decision point. I took Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off to let the pain and swelling subside which takes me to Wednesday. I had hoped that with 3 days off I would be able to start the run pain free or at least reduced but after a 1/4 mile I knew I had reached my decision point.

So I headed over to Twin City Orthopedics in Burnsville, they have walk-in appointments and less than 10 minutes later I was getting it checked out. They took X-rays to make sure that they looked good and then examined the knee. The doctor pointed out on the X-ray that I had the start of osteoarthritis in the knee which he considered somewhat normal since he knew I had knee surgery 10+ years earlier. He then took the knee through the movements and gave me the news of a torn meniscus which surprised me a little as I was hoping that Kevin's diagnosis of a bursa/tendon issue was the cause, oh well.

He said I could run on it and it would be all about my ability to manage the pain. Since I have had surgeries for my previous meniscus tears, my concern is how much meniscus do I have left in this knee. So I am hoping to avoid surgery, he of course said if I wasn't running on it, that for normal everyday activities I would probably be able to avoid it. Since the knee isn't catching and taking into account that probably half of the meniscus might already be gone from the first surgery, he seemed to think it's a smaller tear and might be manageable even for running. Of course it would take a MRI or surgery to confirm.

What he offered to do is to give me a steroid shot in the knee with the belief it could reduce the swelling and that should give me a shot at the marathon on Saturday. He said no running on it until the marathon to give it the best chance to help. He wasn't as confident about the rest of the races for the year but thought this marathon would provide me some insight.

So there it is, on to Brainerd for a marathon test.

Based on how things go it will probably dictate my year as if I have significant pain then surgery may be where I want or need to go. My hope is that I can manage it and run the races for this year as planned. Stay tuned.

Update on "Long run recap? "

I decided to go in and see Dr. Kevin at Lyn Lake Chiropractic. I figured if it's my meniscus he still might be able to help, if not, then for sure he would be able to.

He checked things out and believes it's an inflamed bursa just below the knee or possibly a strained MCL. He said with the swelling it's a bit hard to tell but he said the pain point was below the meniscus and probably the bursa. He said it's the  "pes anserine bursa." and agrees that I probably injured it when I missed the step out in San Jose and landed hard on the knee (at the time I was quite happy that I didn't roll the ankle). I then ran 3 days in a row while in San Jose on a mixture of concrete and asphalt which probably caused it to become more inflamed.

Anyway, they worked on it with a combination of stimulation, something else, ultrasound, he adjusted the knee and taped it. He said with what they did and then following up with ice that I will be running pain free in no time. So that's the plan, rest, ice, aleve, see Dr. Kevin for additional treatments if needed, repeat.

Long run recap?

The plan for today was to get a 19 mile long run, it didn't happen. As I posted last time, somehow I have injured my knee and the injury is eerily similar to one from the past with one very good difference. The injury, a possible medial meniscus tear, the problem is I have had it in the past, had surgery which means less meniscus so if I have injured it again, well not good.

Why have I jumped to this conclusion, the pain is on the inside of the knee, right at the joint line. I may be wrong but I am not sure what else it could be and based on two past meniscus tears (both knees) it seems similar. Maybe it's bruised, strained or ?.

Anyway, the plan for today was to continue with the Galloway run walk method which is a good approach if you have an injury anyway. All was going well until after 4 or 5 miles I meandered over to Apple Valley and ran a few miles on concrete, shortly after that the knee went from manageable pain to uncomfortable pain. I tried to work through it but as my form started compensating and not in a good way, I decided to abort at 14 miles.

What to do? Ice, stretching, ice, maybe see a doctor? The problem is I have 4 weeks until the first marathon of the year, one final long run in 2 weeks so I have just a few weeks to heal (optimist :-) or to see a doctor or both I guess. The problem is other than another surgery which I don't think is needed, although there is swelling and pain, it hasn't caught or buckled so I think it is minor, just painful at the moment. The main concern, is that I am not sure what they can do except tell me to rest it which doesn't fit my plans. The other problem, we are in vacation next week so getting in to see a doctor isn't real feasible either, so ice, compression and shorter runs are the plan.

Stay tuned...........

Yet another experiment - 2 runs in a day

Ok, for as long as have been running and not following some wisdom from experienced runners, I may be learning a few things this year. Today I continued to play with the run walk technique and I split my run up.

I went into this weekend planning to get in a 17 mile long run, I had two problems though, the first was an extremely sore knee and the second was when to get it in. I thought about trying to get the run in on Saturday but it didn't work out. It was a good choice as I hobbled through 5 miles thinking, oh no, what is going on as I had no idea why my knee was hurting.

The other reason was that my daughter was home from college and she needed to get in a longer run and asked if we could run at Nokomis on Sunday. How could I say no, the only problem was in the time she would run 9 miles, I would get in best case 7  but the last time she was home it worked out as I kept running and she went to Caribou. Same plan today except she needed to get back to school so I decided to split up my run with 11 at Nokomis and 6 after she left for school. I have only done this like twice and it's been so long that I don't remember if it worked. Well it did as did the run walk.

Matter of fact I added an extra mile since I was feeling guilty for having recovery time. The other thing I did today was I increased my running time versus walking and didn't have issues, during the first run, I used a 2 to 1 ratio, for the second run I used 1 1/2 to 1. You can see that since the goal is simply sub 13, it worked and the 2nd run was done at a faster pace.

One other thing during the first run, I may have figured out why my knee is hurting. I was in San Jose last week and the first day when I was heading to my car, I missed a step and landed hard on my left foot. I remember at the time thinking that my proprioception is better as I didn't roll the ankle. But in hindsight, I think I may have strained the knee or bruised it as it did absorb the impact. Anyway it did hurt during the run but not enough that it made me stop.

So 2 more long runs before Run for the Lakes and things seem to be working out.