Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Some speed and my knee

Let's talk about a knee and speed.

I went to the doctor on Monday. I told her about my cranky knee. She did a quick exam, bent my knee a couple of different ways, asked me what hurt. I told her. She said it didn't sound or feel like anything structural and that she thought it was most likely an IT band issue.

So on Tuesday I'm heading to see a physical therapist. My doctor opted not to refer me straight to the sports medicine doctor. She said she's worked with the PT she's sending to before - both as a doctor as a patient herself - and the PT has really good diagnostic abilities. So PT it is for me. And if my cranky knee isn't getting better in a month, I'll get sent to the sports doc and probably have x-rays or an MRI to figure out what's wrong.

PT starts in less than a week. But at this point, I'tm still cleared to run. My doctor said I can continue to run at this point, just don't ramp up mileage, try to change my form or do anything stupid. Well, she didn't really say stupid, but that's what I took her to mean.

Which meant I could go to my first speed work session on the track with my running group last night. OK. Speed work on the track may possibly fall into the new and stupid category, but I went into it with the mindset that if my knee started to hurt I would stop.

And good news, it didn't hurt. Well, not while I was running. Afterwards, it was sore, but I was kind of expecting that. I mean it's not everyday I do speed work. So I had a nice date with the foam roller and ice pack last night when I got home.

As for the speed work session? It was a 1.5 mile warm up followed by 6x200 meter intervals. Since it was the first week, I wasn't aiming for a specific pace. I just wanted to be consistent. Which I was - four were at 58 seconds, one at 57 seconds and one 59 seconds. Following the 200s, I had one 400 meter interval, which I finished in 2:10. I'm happy. Then there was another 1.5 mile cooldown. I almost bagged it at 1 mile, but I gutted it out.

So kind of good news on the knee and I managed to survive my first speed session at the track. That was kind of a good start to the week.

4 comments:

Carolina John said...

That sounds like a good report and good speedwork! good call.

MotherRunner said...

Yeah for speedwork! I love it, but haven't done it in a long time. Hope PT goes well for you - it's always interesting to learn new stuff about your body and form.

Jasmine said...

That's awesome you have a group to do speedwork with. I need to look into that. Hope your knee feels better soon!

iWishiLikedRunning said...

I'm always looking for new ways of addressing my IT Band issues. I read that strengthing works better than strengthing just a couple days ago from a runner's world tweet. ow.ly/bRxpw