I started the week with a doctor's appointment. In an attempt to address my knee pain issues, I visited a sports medicine doctor.
After an X-ray of my knees, the doctor confirmed my suspicion of ITB irritation.
The only realistic course of action is to avoid heavy mileage at the moment and I was given a series of exercises to prevent the aggravation of the problem.
The doctor explained that my ITB inflammation was probably caused by a lack of strength in some muscles on the left side of my leg and hip. After these muscles get too fatigued, the position of my body is shifting to compensate which accentuates the rubbing of the ITB on the outside of the knee.
The prescribed exercises are going to be time consuming. In fact, it is now Wednesday, and I have not started them. I will really have to make a conscious effort to reorganize my daily routine to make time for this. And soon!
On Monday, I went to practice swimming at the pool. I feel like I am stagnating a bit and always have the same difficulty with my breathing.
Afterwards, I decided to skip the 6 miler and let the knee rest some more...
Yesterday, I went to the track for the dreaded 3 x 6min, 4 min recovery session. The goal was 5:42, 5:43, 5:54 pace for each 6 minutes.
Now given that I had just performed a max effort mile at 5:44, this goal was ridiculously out of my reach.
I set a new more achieable target of 6min /mile for each rep.
The result was a bit disappointing 6:06, 6:18, 6:24. Way off not only the original goal but also the revised one and even slower than the 3 x 6 min I did a couple of weeks ago... Not sure what went wrong. Did I really give my all?
If I am going to run a sub 5 min mile, I definitely need to make the most out of each session. And this one felt like a waste of time
On Thursday, I had a new speed workout, but the wind was so strong that it was pointless to try to run. I postponed to Friday but on that day, it was snowing so much that the track was covered. I went back out on Saturday but the track had still a foot of snow covering it. I reluctantly decided to do the workout indoors on my treadmill.
The work out was 12 x 200m with 100m jog recovery. Then 5 min rest and 800m in 2:37. I converted that to 12 x 40 seconds at 12 mph with 1% incline with 40 second recovery at 6 mph 1% incline. Then after 5min rest, 0.5 miles at 11.5 mph and 0.5 % incline.
The workout was brutal. At the end of the 12 intervals, I had accumulated so much oxygen debt that I had trouble breathing fast enough for a minute or so. I completed the workout successfully and I will call that a win over Tom even though it is difficult to compare this workout with what was originally scheduled... On Sunday, I wanted to catch up with my run schedule but my knee was so sore that I decided against it.
After an X-ray of my knees, the doctor confirmed my suspicion of ITB irritation.
The only realistic course of action is to avoid heavy mileage at the moment and I was given a series of exercises to prevent the aggravation of the problem.
The doctor explained that my ITB inflammation was probably caused by a lack of strength in some muscles on the left side of my leg and hip. After these muscles get too fatigued, the position of my body is shifting to compensate which accentuates the rubbing of the ITB on the outside of the knee.
The prescribed exercises are going to be time consuming. In fact, it is now Wednesday, and I have not started them. I will really have to make a conscious effort to reorganize my daily routine to make time for this. And soon!
On Monday, I went to practice swimming at the pool. I feel like I am stagnating a bit and always have the same difficulty with my breathing.
Afterwards, I decided to skip the 6 miler and let the knee rest some more...
Yesterday, I went to the track for the dreaded 3 x 6min, 4 min recovery session. The goal was 5:42, 5:43, 5:54 pace for each 6 minutes.
Now given that I had just performed a max effort mile at 5:44, this goal was ridiculously out of my reach.
I set a new more achieable target of 6min /mile for each rep.
The result was a bit disappointing 6:06, 6:18, 6:24. Way off not only the original goal but also the revised one and even slower than the 3 x 6 min I did a couple of weeks ago... Not sure what went wrong. Did I really give my all?
If I am going to run a sub 5 min mile, I definitely need to make the most out of each session. And this one felt like a waste of time
On Thursday, I had a new speed workout, but the wind was so strong that it was pointless to try to run. I postponed to Friday but on that day, it was snowing so much that the track was covered. I went back out on Saturday but the track had still a foot of snow covering it. I reluctantly decided to do the workout indoors on my treadmill.
The work out was 12 x 200m with 100m jog recovery. Then 5 min rest and 800m in 2:37. I converted that to 12 x 40 seconds at 12 mph with 1% incline with 40 second recovery at 6 mph 1% incline. Then after 5min rest, 0.5 miles at 11.5 mph and 0.5 % incline.
The workout was brutal. At the end of the 12 intervals, I had accumulated so much oxygen debt that I had trouble breathing fast enough for a minute or so. I completed the workout successfully and I will call that a win over Tom even though it is difficult to compare this workout with what was originally scheduled... On Sunday, I wanted to catch up with my run schedule but my knee was so sore that I decided against it.
