Weekly Report:

I have been bad about writing my weekly report.  A lot of it stems from the fact that I haven't been training much.  This knee thing has really kept me sidelined because I have been worried I may injure it more.  I finally saw a doctor about it and he diagnosed it as patellar tendonitis.  I was then referred to a PT and I saw him this week.  It was encouraging and he feels like he can give me some tools and workouts to get back on the right track.  He also saw a few things in my running mechanics that he felt could lighten the load on the tendon and help it heal.  All good new for me.  I got the green light from him to run and he didn't think I could do much to make it worse.  Again, all good news.

I plan on increasing my mileage this week by 1 mile a day just to get the legs use to a little more distance.  I have some exercises I will start including in my daily core work and at some point I will get the bike going again.  That might be next week because I didn't have time to fix my flat and get it off the trainer.  Somehow I got a flat back tire while it was on the trainer.

Overall I am just greatful I have been able to steadily feel some relief and that now I may be able to get some help to get this injury behind me.  I'm looking forward to a healthy summer full of trail running, road running, swimming, and biking.

Beautiful morning.  Every day I'm feeling better.

No patellar strap today.  Things almost felt normal.

This morning it was overcast and foggy.  It was so pretty running through the trees in the neighborhood when the sun was just starting to peek through. 

It was one of those running moments!  Made me so grateful I can run.

Long run.

Definately feeling better.

Weekly Review:

I had what I felt was a great week!  I have not felt like my old self for so long and this week was the first week I felt normal again.  It's been a really hard 5 months for me.  All of my runs were solid runs for me this week.  My knee has been feeling much better and from a cardio standpoint I am starting to feel a lot better.  I have really missed the athlete in me for a long time.

I was able to get 1 swim in this week and I am planning on getting in another 2 this week.  I will not be as busy working all over southern California this week so I will have some time to get a couple swims in.  I am also hoping to get a couple bike rides in this week but I'll play it by year.

The patellar tendon is feeling good.  I still know it's not 100% but its somewhere between 90 and 95%.  I've been doing some exercises to try to help with some of my stabilizer muscles and maybe take some pressure off the tendon and so maybe that is starting to pay off.  I'm acutally looking forward to running a marathon again, which is a big thing because if you asked me a couple months ago I would have told you I had no interest in it.  I know I still have work to do, but this week was the kind of week I have been waiting months for.

Cool and cloudy morning with a slight mist.  

Very enjoyable weather for running.

Felt really good with the swim today.

My run today consisted of some tempo work.  I felt really good this morning.  Beautiful morning for a run.

Tempo run and solid afternoon swim.

Really nice morning in Las Vegas.  It was flat and cool so I felt really good.  Ended up with about a 7:50 pace.  This was just the pace my legs felt really good at.

Longest run in a while and I was pleased with how easy it felt.

I am really happy with my week.  I didn't get on the bike this week but it was too cold in the morning to ride.  I got 2 swims in and both felt really good.  My upper body seemed to respond well to the swimming. 

My running continues to improve.  I hit my goal of 30 miles this week.  I will hover around the 30-35 mile mark until I start marathon training.  My plan is to increase my daily mileage to 4.5 and shoot for a 10 mile run on Saturday.  At that point I will just maintain for a couple months.  I also want to get on the bike at least 2 days this week.  The weather is suppose to warm up here so I should be able to get it done.  

The knee seems the same.  No worse or better.  I've been doing some core/glute workouts and these seem to be really helping with my overall fitness and speed.  

It's time for some new shoes also.  I've got over 400 miles on both pairs of my Nike Pegasus.  They have been really good shoes so I think I am going to buy a couple new pairs of them.

Easy run.  This could have been the first morning of running I didn't really feel any issue with my patellar tendon in months.  It was very exciting.

This is the longest run I have had for a long time.  I could tell my legs got a little tired off and on with the uphill but the last 4 miles I did some tempo work and felt good.  I stopped every 2.5 miles to do a quick stretch and refocus on my form.  

Weekly Report:

I was able to reach my goal this week for mileage.  I wanted somewhere around 32 and finished with 32.8 miles this week.  I ran every day and felt good with each run.  Tuesday and Thursday were some faster tempo runs with Monday, Wednesday, and Friday being just runs to work on form and enjoy the morning.  I felt good with my 10 mile run and was able to include some tempo work in the last 4 miles without any issues.  Each week I seem to feel better and better.  I will keep my runs about the same this week with the only difference each morning run will be 5 miles.  This will give me a total of 35 miles this week and this is where I will stop for a while.  I will slowly start to increase towards the end of July, about 3 1/2 months before my next marathon.  I plan on incorporating some cycling into the workout this week also because the weather is getting much warmer here in the mornings.

I got some new shoes this week also.  It's always fun to get a new pair of running shoes.  They are the Pegasus 38 and they seemed to feel good, although I only ran in each pair once this week.  

I saw the PT this week and I showed him the form I am working on.  He basically said that I really don't need him anymore.  I've noticed my right knee turns slightly inward so I have been focusing on changing this and focusing on glutes to help stabilize this.  He gave me 4 more exercises to do so I will incorporate that into my nightly workout sessions to try to help strengthen the glutes.

Overall, I am making progress.  I feel this time off may have been a big blessing because I am getting much stronger and this is translating into faster running with less effort.  I'm really excited to see how another 5 months of this will translate into my race time.  

Breaking in the new shoes.  I love getting new shoes but they do take a little getting use to sometimes.