My knee likes Cycling!

After my recent problems in starting to run again, I figured that maybe cycling would be a better idea …

Photo by Kevin Saunders

In the information that I found cycling was quite often mentioned as a good rehab sport after a PCL injury. So I did my exercises as mentioned in the previous post, and when my knee felt better, I got out my bike (even the sun came out a bit!).

At first, I had a little bit of tightness at the top of my pedal stroke, but that was totally bearable and didn’t get any worse. 30 minutes were quite enough though, thank you. After one day of not doing much else than my exercises, I was confident I could tolerate another session today. A little bit longer (45 minutes), but this time it wasn’t the knee that made me end the session but rather the cold. (There is a foot of snow in the weather report for us and rather nasty and cold Easterly wind.)

This was much better than my previous tries of going out for a run. If I’m okay tomorrow morning, then I think I will try to end the year with a little jog. If my knee doesn’t complain after that, then I’m confident that I can get back to training in January. We’ll see how it goes …

Knee not better at all

Haven’t had much fun with my knee in the last days. Every time the pain was gone and I thought I could get back into training, the swelling and pain flared up again so I needed another few days off. I didn’t do anything big, but even two 30 minute runs within three days seemed to be too much. Bummer.

So I think I have to take things a bit slower than I planned and do a few exercises before going out for my next run. Here’s a couple of ideas that I found for strengthening the knee:

1. Front thigh (repeat 10 times)
   Contract the front thigh (knee cup should move up), hold for 10 secs
2. Leg raises (repeat 10 times)
   Lie on the back, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee. Raise the entire leg from the heel up, hold for 5 to 10 secs.
3. Backward leg raise (repeat 10 times)
   Lie on stomach, then lift one leg as high as possible, hold for 5 to 10 secs.
4. Knee bends (repeat 10 to 20 times)
   Stand with feet about shoulder wide (or closer). Bend the knees with a straight back and stop at about 90 degrees (or earlier when there is pain).

These exercises should be done for both legs (so that the uninjured leg is also strengthened) and you should slowly work up to doing them up to three times daily.

Then there are some ROM (range of motion) exercises for the knee such as these:

1. Heel prop
   Elevate your heel on a pillow and allow gravity to straighten your leg (may be done in conjunction with (1) from the strengthening exercises)
2. Prone hang
   Lie on the stomach with your knee and lower leg off the edge of your bed. Again, let gravity extend your leg.
3. Heel slides
   Lie on your back and slide your heel towards the glutes as far as possible. May use the other leg for assistance in pushing.

Hopefully, these exercises will help me get back to regular training. The good news is that swimming and biking should be much easier on the knee. While cycling is not much of an option (it’s been snowing a bit and it’s really cold outside), I might benefit from a swim focus while my knee is healing. I’ll wait a bit before making plans …

Getting back to regular Running

After my recent injury, I’m slowly getting back into something that can be called training.

Last week (my first week back into running after almost three weeks of break, I did three runs. With 23 (Mo), 28 (Fr) and 40 minutes (Su), I didn’t break any training records, but I managed to run without any issues. The knee was okay, and it felt great to be able to get out of the door. Also, I’m way back on my sports podcasts, so I had to get back to running! It’s good to be back on the trails behind our house ..

.. even if it’s mostly dark when I manage to get running after work.

This week, I’ve managed to 48 minute runs on Monday and today (Wednesday). I’m sure I could have run faster and/or longer, but for now the goal has to get back to running on a regular basis. I hope to be able to get at least two, better three more runs in (each shorter than hour), and then to slowly increase the duration of the runs.

It’s always tricky to run around the Christmas holidays, but I should be able to get a few runs in. By the end of December I want to be back in shape to run a decent 10k race that’s on my schedule for New Year’s Eve. I’d like to be able to get a longer run (around 1.30h) in by then, but that is less important than regular running and a bit of faster running.

After all, there are more important goals for next year than just a 26k race I missed because of my injury!

First little step back to fitness

Managed to get my first little run in today. Felt good all the way around. My quadriceps held up fine, no complaints at all (and I was listening very closely!). It felt good to put on the running kit and get outside for a while.

Didn’t do much more than twenty minutes, but it felt like a little victory. On to the next little step!

Planning training after injury

My injury is much better, but after some gentle reminders by my wife to be patient I’ve decided to give it a few more days. So maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

Photo by Sundaybrunch

In the meantime, I’ve been taken the time to get some extra r&r. After all, when I’m back in full training, there won’t be too many chances to sleep until noon (like I managed to do today). Not sure if I really need all that sleep or if I’ve gotten lazy.

As I can’t do any training, I’ve been reading up on how to plan for starting training again after an injury. As a rule of thumb, for every week of no training, I should expect about two weeks to “recover” any fitness I’ve lost. I haven’t done any training for more than two weeks now, so I can expect to require all of December to get back to the level I was at. I’m tentatively planning one of the New Year’s Eve races on December 31st, but that’s still a long way off and I haven’t managed to run a single step yet. Maybe I’ll better take another nap …

Recovering from my injury .. planning for 2010

It’s been more than a week that I’ve hurt myself again. Apart from eating some Diclofenac pill, wearing a knee bandage and the occasional stretching I haven’t done any sports activity at all.

I’m still not completely healed, but the swelling in my knee is mostly gone and I can move around without thinking too much about my knee. Bending and extending is almost back to normal again and I’m optimistic that I can slowly start running again, depending on my schedule either tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday. Not much more than an easy 15 or 20 minute jog, but I’m getting anxious to get out of the door again.

In the meantime I’ve been on the phone with Mitch from CounterpartCoaching and we’ve been talking about my 2010 season plan. For December the main goal is to get back to regular training, so I don’t want to get too excited now writing about all my goals for 2010. Once I’m back doing my regular training, I’ll post some more details. For now all I’m going to say is that I want to PR in the half-marathon in late winter / early spring and have a decent Ironman in Frankfurt, “running the run”. That should be another PR (marathon within an IM .. currently at 4:36), maybe another one for the full IM (currently 11:58). A long way to go!