Hmmm... injury

Every runner's worst scenario... not being able to run. Things haven't been quite right for about 2 months now. Little niggies here and there which it seems have esclated. I can trace this back to exactly the point where I got injured. July 3rd, Glasgow city centre. Paranoid about trying to get training runs in whilst on a stag do, I ventured out for a quick 30 minute job before heading out on the piss with the boys. In my rush I forgot to warm-up and went straight out. 20 minutes in I felt my calf go.

I was actually relatively sensible and rested up for a few days, just over a week before the Hunter Valley marathon. That came and went OK (well more than OK, I ran a PB!), and then Wagga came up and 17kms in, I felt it go again, but soldier on I did, and the week after, running the Mudgee marathon, but in a bit of pain, and then the knee started giving me jip. So here we are, two months later.

I rested all week last week, and went out again for a bit of a tester run last night. Not good - pulling short after 25 minutes. The knee is a strange one. It's not a sharp pain, more like a dull ache. As such I dont know how bad it is. Is it that bad? I ran a bloody marathon with it. However the calf, or rather soleus (muscle just below the calf) is annoying me now. It keeps on pulling and tugging at me whilst I run, threatening to fully go, but not quite going over the edge completely.

I'm off to the physio at lunchtime, but what do I do? I'm loathed to rest, although I know this is what I should do. I hate resting, I dont want to lose fitness. I did that for a month last year and was amazed how much fitness I lost, although I wasn't properly up and training then.

Have I overdone it on the races? Maybe 3 marathons in 5 weeks is going some, and racing them all quite hard apart from the last one. There's also been no real taper either, and coupled with this, I did some shorter sprint races in between, and no rest for those either.

It's concerning me as my training is getting thrown all over the place a little. The second stage of my training started well in May, with some solid high milage - avergaing 45 miles a week. June pretty good, but July was a mess. August was slightly better, with 3 solid races in 3 weeks and that kept me ticking over. However things have to ramp up big time post the Glasshouse race in 2 weeks time. I've set myself a goal of 5/6 months of really building up the miles, peaking in late Jan/early Feb at around 100 miles a week, before tapering.

However we'll have to see what the knee outcome is. If I must I'd be prepared to rest completely before the Glasshouse race (if anything I'll be totally refreshed!). This is a big test of where I'm at and what need to do. Strangely I'm not nervous about it at the moment, except for any potential injury. As I found out, running 42.195kms with a dodgy knee and calf was not pleasant!

It shouldn't all be negative. I'm actually in a pretty good position and if I'm honest, ahead of where I thought I'd be at come this stage of the training. However an enforced rest could bugger up a lot of this. We shall see how we go...

__________________________________________________________

Physio update!

Not really that much more conclusive to be honest. Might possibly go for an MRI, but we're trying one more thing. The lovely lady reckons that I my knee cap moves in a funnny position, so we've taped it up to limit it's movement to one side and going to give that a go. So with this, I'll try and run tonight and see what happens. Failing that, we're off for an MRI to see what's going on. Still doing the Glasshouse House though, I'll bloody walk it if I have to!