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I’m waiting for some experiments to run, so I’ll just keep writing.

My left knee is still bothering me. It didn’t get much better by Saturday, so I skipped both runs this weekend. By yesterday it still felt off, so I was bitching to Catherine about it. She did a knee exam on me and decided it was one of two things: pes anserine bursitis or medial plica syndrome. Based on the location of the popping I feel, I think it’s the pes anserine bursitis. It’s very mild in that there’s no pain, only that popping sensation and a weird feeling in my patella. But it’s really bugging me that it’s so slow to go away and I’m unable to run. I’ve worked hard over that past several months to run consistently and build up slowly, and I’m angry that my body won’t cooperate. I feel like I did everything right in terms of building up slowly, taking things easy, yet I still got injured.

After much complaining, Catherine convinced me to try seriously treating this thing, so I’m taking NSAIDs twice a day and also icing three times a day. I didn’t know this, but she says you need to take the NSAIDs regularly for two weeks for them to really decrease the inflammation. I assumed you could just take them when it hurt. So I’m going to give this a try and see if it works. I’ll try to do some easy runs this week and see if the knee gets better with this treatment. I think long term I would like to switch to running 5 days a week, as shorter runs on each day would probably be easier on my body than 5-mile runs every time I run.

An update on my running. A couple weeks ago it was raining heaviliy here, so I did two longish runs (5 and 6 miles) on the treadmill at our gym (see post). I foolishly wanted to keep my weekly mileage up above 20 miles per week. On Monday, my left hamstring was bothering me. I had a popping sensation in the inside back of my knee when I bent my leg. No pain, just the popping.

I ran with my grad student friends on Tuesday and felt great, but my leg was still bothering me. Wednesday I did my normal leg strength workout at the gym. Thursday I skipped my run because of the popping, then I ran short (3 miles) on Saturday and Sunday. All this time, the leg didn’t get any better; if anything, it felt worse. So this week I’ve had to cut back. I ran 3ish miles with the other grad students on Tuesday, and I’ve been off since then. My leg is just starting to feel normal again, but I’m considering skipping my runs this weekend too to let it heal fully before starting back. Or I may just run easy on Saturday and Sunday and then do my normal mileage next week. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s so frustrating to be injured like this. I feel like I did everything right, aside from this treadmill business. I had been running very consistently at 18-20 miles per week for nearly two months. I hadn’t increased my distance until I felt comfortable with that kind of mileage. I was taking most runs easy, with at most 1 fast run a week. I felt like I was getting into really good shape at that point, ready to do some racing. And then comes the injury.

At least I don’t have a particular race coming up that I was planning to run. This is exactly why I decided not to push for a half-marathon or marathon this year. If I’m only running 5ks, I don’t feel the need to quickly increase my weekly mileage, and hopefully I can avoid injury. More mileage is always good, but it’s not necessary for 5ks, whereas it would be for a half or full marathon.

Went to Marathon Sports in Boston today and picked up a Fuel Belt. What is a Fuel Belt, you say? It’s a geeky way to carry water or Gatorade for your runs. It looks like this:

Yes, it looks highly dorky, but it’s supposed not to bounce because the weight is spread evenly across the belt and the water bottles are held in place by elastic bands. I have a normal water bottle carrier that bounces up and down and is highly annoying, so I’m hoping this works better.

My left hamstring has been bothering me, so I probably won’t do a long run this week. But I might take the Fuel Belt on a short run this week to see how it feels. Now that my long runs are getting signifncantly longer than an hour and the weather is getting warmer, I think I’ll be much more comfortable if I have something to drink on those runs.

Eh, why do any work today? I’ve got a lot of blogging to catch up on.

This weekend I was due for about 12 miles of runs. I’ve been slowly increasing my weekly mileage up from 15 mpw to 20+. I’m very proud of this, as I’ve been very consistent for the last few months. Over the past two months, I’ve run 18-20 mpw except for one 11-mile week where my right hamstring was bothering me. This is pretty much the most I’ve ever run, and I’ve felt mostly great doing it.

This week I was due for 22 miles, an increase of 2 miles from the week before. I had run about 10 miles during the week, so I was in a good position for 4-5 miles on Saturday and then a long run of 7-8 on Sunday. Unfortunately, New England was hit by torrential rains all weekend. On the news they showed a flooded street in the next town over, precisely where we had been running the previous Sunday. Bad news.

So Cath and I ran inside at the gym on the treadmills. I did 5 miles by myself on Saturday, which sucked, and 6 miles with Cath on Sunday, which wasn’t as bad. On Sunday I chatted with Catherine most of the way, which made things much less boring. It was actually kind of nice because we could each run our own pace but stay next to each other. But I can’t wait to get outside today for my run.

Today I have an easy run scheduled with other grad students. Should be nice if it doesn’t rain. Even if it does rain, I’m tempted to do it outside. We’ll see how it goes.