Running Free Again

It’s been 2 month now since the Lakeland 50 and my IT band is feeling much better. I was initially reduced to very painful 12 mile weeks for the first 6 weeks, but suddenly one day my knee stopped hurting on my regular 4 mile route. I upped my mileage to 18 mile weeks changing my 4 mile runs for 6 mile runs and although I felt little niggles, no major pain. I have now planned loads of 50 and 60 mile runs although I in constant fear that the pain will return. Never less, I have started to increase my distance to “test” my knee. I ran an 11 mile route on two consecutive days this weekend and felt no signs of pain when running, only a nagging feeling later in the evening. With a 34 mile week in the bag and am hoping to up it again to 48 mile week, after which I will attempt a 30 mile run the following weekend, then a 50 miler the weekend after that.

It feels so good to be out running again without 100% focus being on my knee. I can’t feel any loss in my legs from the lower mileage, but I’m sure I will at mile 30+. The one thing I have noticed is my breathing is now a lot harder and my heart rate is higher. It is a mystery as to why my knee would go from being extremely painful for months and months to suddenly no pain overnight. I can only assume it finally healed enough to prevent further damage when running. One sure thing that changed was that my Nike’s were wet so I used my 10+ year old Salamon’s, and even though they are so far gone with no cushioning or support, they have not caused any injury. In the fear that maybe my Nike were causing the problem or just preventing it from healing, I have now discarded them and I’m sticking with my extremely old Salamon’s for now.

If all goes well I will be posting my next running adventure very soon.