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May 23, 2006
Admitting defeat
I've had a sneaking suspicion that my knee pain was more than just soreness ever since late last week, but I really didn't want to admit it to myself, especially since I was going to try and make it through one more track workout tonight. Since I don't really take much time off, I have learned to run through a lot of aches and pains. But I know it's generally something serious when the pain lasts all day (and night) after a run and I have trouble just walking, which is what's going on now.
I woke up this morning and it hurt immediately getting out of bed. I was still in denial mode and thought I would do my usual pre-workout jog and it would loosen up and I'd know I'd be okay for track. It did loosen up some, but after about 10 minutes, I realized that it was truly dumb to try and do speedwork on it. First of all, I could tell I was limping, no matter how much I tried to make up for it. I probably wouldn't have been able to run fast anyway. Secondly, it really hurt! I made up my mind before getting back home that I needed to try to take care of this now, rather than limping through another few weeks worth of runs. This wasn't and still isn't an easy decision for me to deal with; I was tearing up as I got home.
We've all been through it so I'm sure many of you know exactly what I mean when I say I felt really low today. Maybe I should have taken more than 0 days off after each of my marathons this spring, but I've been okay not doing that before. In all honesty, my right leg (currently my "bad" leg but formerly my "never injured" leg) hasn't felt right since Boston. Wynne and I ran on the right side of the road for the vast majority of the race. I'm not sure if that was why, but my right foot and quad were noticeably more sore than the left after that. My right hamstring has been very tight too recently and I'm sure it's all contributing to a very inflamed popliteal tendon. Anyway, whatever the reason for this injury, I guess it doesn't matter. I feel like I was in great shape leading up to the marathon and I just dread the feeling of being sluggish and out of shape when I eventually get better. At this point, though, I'm not physically capable of running fast, so it's kind of a moot point.
I spent a lot of the day sleeping today. I felt like I couldn't keep my eyes open because I didn't want to think about dealing with my injury. Eventually I snapped out of it somewhat and I did some work and then headed to MIT to swim--or pull, I should say. My friend Summer, who is the assistant track coach at MIT, was pool running at the time, so it wasn't as lonely as it might have been. They've changed the pool over to long course (50 meter lanes) for the summer, which takes some getting used to, especially since I haven't been swimming much lately. I swam for almost an hour, until my arms were about to fall off. So boring, but I kept thinking that it was good for me to be in the pool rather than on the track.
After swimming I was starving as I always am when I get out of the pool. I was having major guilt pangs that I wasn't at my club's track workout, but I tried my best to push them out of my head and enjoy a greasy burger at Bartley's, a Harvard Square institution, with Summer and Matt. I've passed by a million times, but neither Matt nor I had ever been. It was very good and we had a lot of fun.
I'm home icing again, hoping at least the pain will go away soon. I'm going to do a little research on massages in the area and prepare for a phone interview I have tomorrow. I apologize if this entry was depressing, but if you're a runner, you know exactly how I feel!
Posted by becky at May 23, 2006 9:09 PM