Knee Trouble

Back in May, I ran a 1600 meter time trial at a local high school track, on very little mileage. My time was a paltry 6:42. I followed that up with a pretty much all-out 400m in 1:17.

On Monday of this week I decided it was time to do that workout again, just to see where I am in comparison. Granted, my mileage still isn't very high, but I've been running more frequently and more consistently the last couple of months.

After a warmup mile, I ran my 1600m in 6:26. Still slow, but a 16 second improvement over my earlier time. After an 800m recovery, I ran the same all-out 400m, this time in 1:16. Again, not impressive, but since I've mostly been running in Zone 2 (i.e. 10:00/mile), I can't complain.

What I CAN complain about, however, is the pain under my right knee cap. It's really aggravated. I haven't had knee trouble there for a few years, but I recognize the pain. It's a bit of Condromalacia Patella (Runner's Knee). It emits a warm, spongy, achy feeling that isn't pleasant at all.

It's important to note two things here. I wore new shoes during my fast running (Brooks Pure Cadence - a low drop shoe, at 4mm...which felt awesome, btw), and a couple of hours after my track workout, I did 74 bodyweight squats in a single set. I normally don't go over 50.

So, if my math is correct...fast running on new shoes + lots of squats on tired legs = angry knee.

Nobody to blame but myself for this one. It'll be another week of hardly any running, I'm afraid. I'm hoping for at least one more run this week. I'm sure that, with ice and ibuprofen, the knee will come around.

I guess I'll end on a positive note by saying that...my heel feels pretty good at the moment. So I've got that going for me...