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Milton, Ontario, Canada

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Vastus Intermedius


No, no, I haven't started to speak/write in Latin. Rather, I've found the cause of my knee pain. After a wonderful physio session on Friday, the diagnosis is that I have a very tight muscle in my quad which is causing pulling on my knee which in turn is causing the pain. The therapist didn't feel any "clicking" or "crackling" like last time which means that the knee isn't damaged in the same way it was after the Bread and Honey 15k race. She did admit that my charge down the Red Hill Valley Parkway likely didn't help me at all.

So, with my therapist's blessing, I'm going to keep running. I'm very sure I'll be able to end the year at 1400 if not 1420km which is obviously my highest mileage ever for a year. I mean, in 2009 I wanted to get to 600 and had to give up when I keep puking during every run (I was newly pregnant at the end of that year).

This morning, I enjoyed a solo 13km run around town in the freshly fallen snow. I left the house just after 7am and enjoyed watching the sky brighten and being joined by other runners, dog walkers and church goers from time to time. There is something so fulfilling about being outside in the still morning and reminding yourself that you're alive (through running and a bit of knee pain!). I'm especially proud as I didn't want to get up when the alarm rang at 0630, but instead of using all of the excuses I came up with, I let the truth get me out of bed: I would have felt so guilty for missing the run.

By the time I was following my footprints back home like a breadcrumb trail, I was very happy to have gotten out of bed and out the door, even if my knee was feeling some of the effects of the 13k.

Totals for the week: 3 runs, 24k, 2h33m running.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

No, I haven't fallen off of the planet

I've just been busy.

Work has been MADNESS all of November. I've been in back to back meetings all day long and then I've been coming home and putting in another 2-3 hours just to catch up.

It is a good thing that my knee really bothered me after the Hamilton Half Marathon as it forced me to take a bit of a break and I didn't beat myself up about it.

This means that my November stats are not that pretty:

# of runs: 7
Total KM: 54.67
Races: Hamilton Half Marathon
Total time running: 5:32:22
Fitness classes: 4, my fave being BodyPump followed closely by Gravity - both are strength training classes.

I'm going to continue to try to get to those fitness classes throughout December and I'm slowing starting to build up my mileage again as my knee is no longer bothering me. My goal is to hit around 30k a week with two fitness classes until marathon training begins in January.

I'll also try not to be such a stranger!

Cheers!