My Knee and Other Body Parts

For anybody who has been reading my regular blogs you’ll know that I’ve been having problems with my knee. This isn’t a new thing for me my knee problems have been with me almost as long as my knee has. In fact, probably the only thing that keeps me running through the pain is the knowledge that my knee would still cause me problems even if I didn’t run.

I first encountered the problem when I was at school, we were doing the high jump and I found that the knee was causing me pain every time I took off. It wasn’t any better when I was jumping hurdles, so I refused to do any further exercises that involved running jumps. I seemed to be ok with standing jumps, but that wouldn’t win many races or get me very high in the high jump.

I didn’t have any problems over the following years and played plenty of hockey, football and badminton.

The first time I encountered a problem, with my knee, through running, was following my half marathon debut, in 1990. I’d damaged my ligament, I can’t remember which one but, judging by where it hurt, I’d imagine it was my medial collateral ligament. Treatment and rest followed and I was back running a few weeks later.

Over the following years I never really needed to stop running, because of the knee, but it did occasionally flare up so I used to take an additional rest day or ease back on the training. I even managed to successfully negotiate a steeplechase race in Plymouth one year, but I believe I spent more time climbing the hurdles than jumping them. That was definitely a one off experience, nothing has ever tempted me to consider another of them. 

Last August my knee started giving me considerable pain and I took some time off. I couldn’t afford much time off as I was hoping to gain selection for England in the Masters International Cross Country match, I tried some alternative treatment and the pain seemed to go away for a while. This allowed me to get back into training but I’d clearly lost more form than I’d hoped to as I had a poor race in Dublin. Two weeks after Dublin I ran a 10k race in Cheddleton and was in such pain after the race I decided to take a break until xmas.

The pain went during my break and I started again in January, only to tear a calf muscle within a week. Obviously, if you’ve been following my blogs you’ll know all about my comeback and fight to regain fitness, so I won’t waffle on.

I’ve been making gradual progress in training and have been aiming for the Masters Road Relays in May. Unfortunately a few weeks ago my knee has started to ache again. I’m managing it in my training and trying different exercises to try to help things. It’s not too bad, I can cope with the pain but it can be disruptive in my training. I’ve figured out that it hurts most when I start approaching 20 minutes of running, or I’m running fast for longer than 2 minutes at a time, or I’m running downhill – not exactly a good prognosis for a successful racing career.

So I adapt my training to get the best out of the time I’m running, this morning, for example, I did a session of 20 x 1 minute with 10 seconds recovery. I did get a couple of painful moments but all in all it was a good session, having such a short recovery meant I wasn’t going flat out but it was almost like a paced run, however mentally, knowing you only have to run for 1 minute before a break keeps you working hard. It’s a good session, when I was really fit, back in the day….I used to do 30 x 1 minute (a lot faster than today) with 10 seconds recovery.

So how do I see things going? Well I’ve decided to miss the World Masters this year as I really don’t think I’m going to be fit enough. I’m still aiming for the Masters relays, though with all that downhill it could be a problem, that’s assuming I’ll make the Herne Hill team, one of the drawbacks of belong to a strong club is that you’re never guaranteed to make the team. Other than that I’ll be concentrating on 5k races. Of course I could always start running uphill only races, over short distances, as I don’t get any pain going uphill, a shame I’ll miss the Killer Mile on 28 April.

Of course it doesn’t help that I’ve also now got plantar fasciitis, which makes getting out of bed interesting as I hobble from left knee pain to right heel pain. I tell myself it’s good preparation for when I get older, but I don’t have many more years before that excuse wears thin. I’ve been trying out various exercises for that and it seems to be helping, though it was really painful today. The one good thing about the plantar fasciitis is that it doesn’t seem to hurt when I’m running, probably because the knee hurts more.