I wrote the other day about the lingering pain in my left knee .. it didn’t go away for Thursdays run even though I skipped doing a speed workout. It didn’t feel as bad at the end as it did on Wednesday, but it is still bothering me. There are some positives with this knee pain in that right now it doesn’t hurt bad enough to stop me from running … (but is there anything really that can stop me at this point????) The other is that there is no swelling, no bruising, no shooting pain and no specific part of my knee that hurts. To me that indicates that there is trauma based injury, its probably just an overuse injury, which with a little rest, I can easily overcome.

It always becomes apparent whenever I struggle with any minor injury that its very hard to break the habit of running. What I mean is that yesterday, I went out with the intention of getting just ‘something’ in, knowing that I had 7 miles scheduled for the day. I got out and actually felt like I was going to bag the run by mile 2 because my knee got sore, but somehow kept pushing myself, despite the soreness in my knee. Thats never a good thing I don’t think, but those who are committed runners like me understand what its like to get that rush when you run. At mile 2, I just didn’t have that rush and I needed more.

So today is a scheduled rest day, which i’m doing, along with resting my knee, icing it, taking ibuprofen, elevation and favoring it whenever I can. The hope is that the 48 hours of taking it easy will calm it down enough to get my long run in this weekend, then we can go from there. There is the possibility that it could get worse, but its not the first time i’ve felt this kind of knee pain. I recall having the same issue back in 2006 when I was training for my first marathon, and even before that when I was training for the Diamond Run in 2005 .. its just a matter of taking it easy, which maybe I need to do.

The plan is to keep a simple course around the house tomorrow so that if I do have any struggle, I can call it a day and not totally destroy my knee, hopefully it won’t come down to that…