I have had serious knee pain just under the knee so I have taken quite a bit of time off (3 weeks).  I decided that enough is enough and I was running starting new years day.  I have been trying to stay somewhat in shape but my knee limited what I could do and the pools have been closed for the holidays.  Today I finally ran and it felt great to get back out there.  I'm not going to say my body felt great, but my spirit was as happy as could be.  I truly have missed running.  The knee felt ok.  Not great by any means, but it felt ok.  Lots of icing, stretching, and ibuprofen at this point.

I was planning on 4 today but by the time I got going I ended up doing 6.

The knee pain was less than yesterday which made me really happy.  I was able to go really slow being on the trails and it was nice getting back out there for a second day.

Weekly Report:

Got to run twice this week to start the new year.  I have recovered as long as I can.  1 trail run and 1 road run for a total of 8.8 miles.  After the few weeks I've had I'll take it.

I am planning on running a 50 miler and a half marathon within the next 5 months so I need to get to work.  My buddy Rhett is turning 50 this year (although all my kids say he looks like he's barely 35) and we are planning on a 50 miler for his 50th birthday.  I've got a couple other things I want to do with him this year too so it should be a busy and fun 2021.

I'm cautiously optimistic about how my body will react this week.  I've really been working on getting things healed as well as I can and this week will be the test.  Nothing long this week, just some consistant 3 mile runs each morning followed by a slightly long 6-7 mile run on Saturday.  I'll throw in some swimming and core work during the week too.  

Took it slow today.  

Still have the knee pain but nothing is getting worse.

Today I wore a knee brace.  Didn't seem to help much.  My plantar fasciiatis seemed to bother me the most today.

Swim followed by a run.

Knee felt the same but I am going to try a new tape technique and see if that helps.  I also found that a good stretch of the quads seemed to loosen things up a litte and feel better.  Plantar felt much better.  Worked on some new things last night with it and I think at least initially they helped.

Swim was nice.  I wasn't expecting the pool to be so cold initially but after a few minutes I adjusted and things felt good.  Still had some pain in the knee when I am kicking off the wall.

3 miles on the trails.  The heel was tight for about 1/2 mile and then totally loosened up and felt great.  The knee is still giving me the same pain.  Nothing worse maybe a little better.  I've been trying everything to try to calm it down and maybe it's working and I need to give it more time but at this point I don't know.  I'll keep doing what I'm doing because it's not getting any worse.  

Core workout after the run.

This was my long run for the week.  Not much to call home about but it was big for me.  I have really been trying to battle this patella thing so to finish a 6 mile run with no major pain was big for me.  

Weekly Report:

Well, I achieved my goal for the week.  My leg is not really happy with me but the silver lining to this is that my pain is not getting any worse.  It basically has stayed the same for the week.  I'm not sure how I am going to tackle this because it's a new injury for me but I'm working on my stretching and rolling.  I've tried to be really good about this but at times I think I have got a little too aggressive and made it mad.  I am going to keep running as long as things maintain where they are at but I am not going to increase my mileage much.  

I also got 1 swim in this week.  I'm hoping to get in a few more this week but it's a little tough with the limited times I can go to the pool.

I am heading to Lake Tahoe this week with my family for a little vacation and business meeting so I'm hoping to get to run a few trails if they are runnable.  

Weekly Report:

I am trying to get back into the swing of things.  It has been a LONG and challenging experience trying to get healthy again.  This injury is something I have never experienced and it won't seem to go fully away.  I am to the point where I can run without any pain and when I finish it never seems to get worse, but it has never fully gone away.  At times when I am running I will stop and stretch the quad and that seems to loosen it up and make things feel better.  My cardio is getting back to where it was before I had to take my break so I am thrilled with that.  

At this point I will continue to focus on my stretching and stability workouts with my runs.  I was also happy with my week.  I took 1 day off just to give the legs a chance to rest but this week should include a run every day.

Weekly Report:

This was a good week for me.  I was able to run every day and overall I felt good.  My body is starting to feel stronger and I am able to keep the same pace I ran before all of this.  Still working on the endurace part but that will slowly be built up.  My knee is still not totally healthy but it seems to get a little less irritating with every week.  This week I rode the trainer twice but this was about the only time I could.  I shoot for 2 workouts a day but it's just hard and my body fights me on it.  At this point I am happy with just getting back to my pre-injury fitness and being able to have a daily run.

I'm going to continue to switch off between a 2-3 mile run and a 5-6 mile run daily.  This seems to be working well for me.  At this point the mileage will slowly start to creep back up but nothing dramatic.  I plan on running about 25 miles this week and getting as many rides in as I can.  I will also be shooting for at least one swim this week.  I haven't found time the last couple weeks and I am missing it.

Rest Day

Weekly Review:

I am still healing.  I guess that's the big take home message.  The goal for the week was around 25 miles and I got pretty close.  I find that I have to really take care of my patellar tendon area with stretching and other things but I am learning to manage it.  I'm not sure when this will completely heal but nothing seems to be getting worse.  I have times where it bother me a little more than others but overall even the bad times calm down.

My endurance is really starting to come back and I am happy with that.  My splits have got faster with little effort and from a cardio standpoint I feel much better than a month ago.  Once this goes away I think I will be a stronger and better runner because of it.

I got 1 swim in this week but no biking.  The goal for next week will be getting that added into my schedule and cross training.

Weekly Review:

This week will sound a lot like last week.  I had a really good running week but didn't get as much core work and cross training in as I would have liked.  Things just get so busy and I am pretty limited with my time sometimes.  I got 1 swim and bike in this week and I was hoping for at least 2 of each.  My running stamina is coming back and I actually feel stronger and better than I did before my injury.  My form is improving and I think that is making me more efficient and faster.  I'm not trying to run fast, I just find myself at a 7:50 pace and feeling really comfortable when I am on a flat area.

The knee is holding up.  Today, after my 10 mile run yesterday it is pretty tight and sore but I expected it to be a little off today.  I have been working on rolling and stretching.  I am realizing some of this stems from the IT band.  Pushing on the side of the knee causes some pain so I know that I need to work it out.  When I run there is still mild pain with the tendon but this has not changed for a few weeks now even with the increased mileage.

The goal this week is to get to 30 miles.  Once I hit the 30 mile mark I am going to maintain that for the next little while and just let the body continue to get stronger and work on my form.  There is no need to run more than that until I am ready to train for my next marathon in November.  I will get into a better routine for my cross training as well.

So thankful I am able to run and participate in endurance sports!

Ran after work today.  I was lazy this morning.

Weekly Report:

I accomplished about what I wanted to this week.  I decided early in the week that I was going to shoot for 28 miles this week instead of 30.  I will take a recovery week this week because I will be teaching in Mexico for the week and it is difficult to run long distances, but I will still get a few runs in and really focus on my stability exercises and core work.

The knee is still there.  Nothing worse but not any better.  It has stayed the same for a long time now so I'm beginning to think this is the new normal.  I guess I will just be running with a little pain for the next little while.  Nothing too terrible, but it will be nice when it's gone.  I haven't been great about stretching and rolling the last few days so that may be contributing to it also.  I still think the origin is my IT band so I'll spend next week really stretching it out a lot with a little run every day.

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.

Wasn't feeling it this morning.  I was very very tired this morning.  I pushed hard just to get out and do 3.1

Felt really good this morning.  Started late but had a solid run.

Weekly Review:

Overall it was a good week.  I didn't get on the bike but I did get my flat fixed so I don't have a good excuse to tell myself anymore.   I was too busy to get in more than 1 swim this week but the swim I did felt good.  My knee is pretty much 100% and I have really been working on my form to help with better stability.  The weather is also really nice in the morning here so I'm loving my morning runs.  

I still feel better than I have in months.  I had 1 days this week where I decided to only run 3 miles because I was totally exhausted, but other than that I have felt good.  It took everything I had to do those 3 miles though.  This week will be much more of the same.  I will be gone starting Thursday so I'll be running in Vegas again.  I found a really nice running path there that goes for miles so I should be good for my long run.  I just won't be able to bike at all starting Thursday.

Overall, I am really happy with how I feel.  I am so thankful I am back to being healthy again.  It is amazing how much easier it is to get out and run when everything doesn't hurt.  The goal is to be smart and just keep maintaining where I am now for a while.

I had a solid week running.  The weather wasn't that great for riding this week, at least the days I could ride this week, so I didn't get on the bike.  I also couldn't fit a swim session in my schedule this week because I was so busy.  I was able to log 36 miles this week.  The past 3 weeks I have progressivly increased my mileage and have put in solid running workouts in even though I really don't have anything planned to compete in for long distance running until November.  It has just felt really good to get out and run.  

After the past 3-4 week of solid running I am going to take a recovery and cross training week.  My plan is only for about 3 miles a day this week and mix some biking into the workout along with some core and leg work.  I need to slowly start getting better at doing that.  I have slacked off the past couple weeks.  I think it's time for a recovery/cross training week to give my legs a bit of a rest.  I'll do a "long" run this week but it won't be any longer than 7 miles.

Overall I am feeling really good.  My legs feel strong and I feel like my form is improving which is allowing me to run faster with less effort.  At this point a 7:50 mile feels like an 8:30 mile.  At the same time, I'm looking forward to a recovery week to work some muscles that need a little attention and allow my running muscles rest a little.

Weekly Report:

I thought this week would help to make my legs feel really good but my 6 mile run on Saturday took everything I had.  I felt like I was getting weaker and weaker by the day.  I have had a lot going on with some projects I have going on right now so I have been out of my mind busy and pretty cruntched for time.  Needless to say it was a good thing that I only did 3 miles a day.  

I will be going to Houston this week starting Wednesday night to teach a course so my running may be on a TM at the hotel for a few days.  I'll have to see what the running scene looks like where I am staying.

I never got on the bike this week.  I really thought I would but with everything I had going on I just couldn't find the time.  Plus, I was pretty tired all week.

This week will be another week I shoot for about 35 miles.  Crazy to think that real marathon training will begin the end of July.

Weekly Report:

I've skipped the last couple weeks because of being busy but I'm back.  Had a solid week.  Everything felt good this week and I was able to increase the length of my long run a little this week.  I'm slowly starting to prepare for a November marathon.  

The weather has been excellent although a little rain would be nice.  I did a shorter run on Thursday because I was limited on time but it was good for a recovery day.  I was going to do some interval training that evening but it didn't happen.

This week I will shoot for another 35-40 miles before I have a recovery week the following week.  

A little longer to make up for not running on Monday.

Got some rain last night and this morning so it was a nice run.  Pretty humid, but nice to have a few sprinkles hit my face.

TM run

TM run

Sometimes I wish everything wasn't up and down around here.

But I guess it's good for training.

Rowing and Gym workout

Hill repeats followed by 3 more miles with some tempo.

Went to the gym after that and worked the legs a little more.

Run and then weights.  Finished the workout with 16 minutes of rowing.

I had a really good run.  Everything felt good and I am starting to take some carbs in during the run to get my body use to it again for the marathon.  I think some of the strength training I have been doing for my legs is starting to pay off.  They felt strong the last 3-4 miles and I was able to maintain MP fairly easily on all the flat and downhill parts.

Next week will be 16.

My legs always feel good after a Sunday day of rest.  

Did my run in the afternoon because I didn't have time in the AM.

I hate afternoon runs.

Took it easy with the mileage because I ran in the afternoon yesterday.  

Patellar tendon was a little tighter this morning.

Hill repeats followed by 3 more miles

Chilly rainy morning.  So nice!!

Uphills were my recovery and many of the downhills I did MP with some tempo.

I was thrilled with how good my legs felt during the run.  I had a lot left in the tank when I finished mile 16.

AP:  8:06

Legs felt fresh and good this morning.

Starting to feel like a runner again.

Hill repeats today.

I was able to do 12 without stopping to catch my breath.

Improvement

Hill repeats.

12x water tower road.

Legs felt pretty tired this morning. 

It was a pretty rough 6 miles today.

My legs felt tired and heavy.

Tempo with recovery.

Long run.

Overall felt good and was able to finish at about a 7:20 pace.  

Much more elevation gain than I will experience with my upcoming marathon.  I'm hoping that translated to fresher legs at mile 21.

Strained my neck on Saturday so it was not a lot of fun running this morning.

Muscled out 5.2

Hill repeats.

Water tower road x 15.

1 mile warmup and 2 miles recovery after with some tempo.

Last major hill repeat workout before the marathon.