After Chicago I took about a week off of running to let my legs rest and recover before starting training for The North Face Endurance Challenge 50K on December 1st. My plan was to use my fitness from the marathon to carry me through and apply the specificity principle and do most of my runs on the trails. I made it a point to take it easy and not push the pace and/or distance on any of my runs and to listen to my legs. If I wasn't feeling it or was pretty sore, I took a rest day. I wanted to avoid any injury with the quick turn around between the marathon to the 50K. As much as I tried, it didn't work! About two weeks before race day I planned on doing a back-to-back weekend with 22 miles Saturday and 10 miles on Sunday. I started to feel some knee pain at about mile 19 of 22. I assumed it to be attributed to fatigue from the thousands of feet of climbing I had already done. I knew it was much more than that when I went out for 10 miles the next day and it hurt from step #1. I pushed through 8 miles of pain. (Probably not the smartest decision I've ever made!) The following week I kept my runs to every other day and came damn close to an overdose on Ibuprofen and frostbite from icing. The following Sunday I headed out for 15 miles. Around six miles in I started to feel some pain and decided to turn around just to be safe. Turns out this was a good call because at mile 10.5 my knee exploded with sharp, intense, bite-your-tongue pain. I walked/ran/hobbled back to my car, fighting back tears and the urge to scream a very specific four-letter swearword that would have my mom washing my mouth out with soap. I drove home, threw on some ice and called Coach Dad. (Insert loud sobbing here.)
That was November 17th and was the last time I ran; until today. I was recommended to see a chiropractor who was well known and worked with a lot of Olympians. But, because it was the week before Thanksgiving, I wasn't able to get in to see a recommended chiropractor until the following week. Turns out I should have taken that as a sign as to not waist my time with him. After two visits I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere and was still not sure what the problem was. So I decided to switch it up and see another local sports injury hero, Kelly Haddock. Within 5 minutes (probably less) she had pin-pointed my issue. However, she didn't stop there. She examined from my neck down to my ankles and came to the conclusion that I am pretty screwed up! An hour and twenty minutes later I walked out of there after being cracked, jabbed, stretched, yanked and stabbed with needles, but I couldn't have been happier. I now knew what was going on and I now knew how to fix it. I saw Kelly again yesterday and she repeated the cracking, jabbing, yanking and stabbing with needles and threw in a little stem/ultra-sound combo as the cherry on top. It was all just as worth it, because unlike the first time, this time she said I could run! Music to my happy little ears. I wanted to bolt right out of there and hit the bike path. However, she left me a little sore and I decided to let things settle down a bit before running. So I waited one more day. (I also figured I should be good and rested, just in case I needed to outrun any Zombies. HA!) Today after work I headed out for 3 miles and am happy to report: ZERO KNEE PAIN!
It was a short run, but it was a run! I am just happy to being doing what I love again.
Having been running since the age of nine (that's 15 years!) you would think I would have a resume littered with injuries. However, I have been EXTREMELY fortunate when it comes to injuries. Of course I have had nagging pains here and aching joints there, but I think it is uncommon for a runner to be able say that this is the first injury in 15 years where I have had to take off more than 3-5 days to recover. It was really hard for me mentally, to deal with this injury. Especially having to attend a race that I was supposed to be running ( and was also supposed to be my first ultra!). My days felt incomplete and riding the bike or swimming didn't give me the same feeling I got after a run. I struggled to feel happy and my days didn't feel complete. I even told one of my clients that having my running taken away, was like taking somebody's puppy away. WHO DOES THAT!?
Although this was tough, I consider myself really lucky to have been so injury free in my career and have to give a lot of that credit to an awesome coach. Injuries are part of this sport and many have had to take off much more time than I did and have suffered from many more injuries than I have. It is almost as if it was my turn to be on the injured list. Let's just hope that it is behind me and I am on the road to high mileage weeks!