Friday, April 1, 2011

Running Hochbrückenlauf and Talking to a Doctor about my Knee

Last Sunday, I ran the Hochbrückenlauf in Kiel. It is one of my favorite races – it’s a great course, it’s a hard race that you can’t fake, and it’s usually right on the border between winter and spring.

This year did not disappoint. The weather turned nice the week before the race – at least during the day. It was still freezing during the night, so I still didn’t manage to run in my shorts during the week. But Sunday morning turned out nice and sunny, so I was finally able to ditch the long tights for the race.

As usual, I really enjoyed myself during the race. I was running a pretty solid, hard pace across the whole distance. As usual, I was worried if I could hold the pace all the way, but I managed to eat and drink in small portions without my stomach getting upset, so that was really encouraging. When  I hit the big hill at the bridge, I slowed down a bit on the uphills, but I recovered quickly and was able to run in strong. My average pace was around 4.45/k the whole way. I ended up with a 2.17 – which was a bit disappointing at first, as the last few k-markers seemed to indicate that I would be around 2.15. But they probably were a bit off (the Garmin pace kept steady), so all is well. If I was able to run that pace in my marathon, it would mean a 3.22 – a 7 minute PR, but I would like to be able to be another 3 minutes quicker and post at least a 3.19. I’ve got eight more weeks of training to get there!

My Knee acting up again

One of the things that may stop me in my training is my knee. I’ve felt another “twinge” Saturday morning, but it wasn’t any problem in my Sunday race. Afterwards however, it didn’t feel to good – some tightness, probably due to the swelling. Sitting at a desk on Monday didn’t help, so I quickly dashed in to the doctor. He was able to calm me down a lot. Here’s what he told me:

  • My knee has some instability due to the torn PCL from a few years ago.
  • Muscularly I’m fine, that’s why running is not a problem.
  • As long as my “episodes” are so far apart (and I can still complete an Ironman), I shouldn’t worry about it.
  • If it gets more frequent or I stop doing things because it hurts my knee, then we should think about some therapy and/or surgery.
  • In the meantime, when I feel a “twinge”, I should aggressively take some ibuprofen – not for the pain, but in order to keep the swelling to a minimum.

In other words – nothing to worry about for now. Again, he was able to make me feel a lot better …

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