Tag: runners knee

Excused

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I went to the physio about my knee, after all. I wouldn’t normally have done so but I thought I was going to be on jury service for a few weeks so I might not get another chance. Though I’ve been excused from that, thankfully. Anyway, he thinks my quads are too tight and my external hip rotation is quite poor on my right side but OK on the left. So I have some stretches to do. I also found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K5k5o_8kyQ for external hip rotation, which I tried yesterday and does seem to relieve some of the tightness.

The jury service palaver made me realise my anxiety has been pretty bad lately. It kind of creeps up on you and only after a while you realise you’re having more bad days than you used to. I think it got kicked off by the virus I had in September and has been a bit hyperactive ever since. I’m going to try going on a total news detox and see if that makes any difference. I seem to spend a lot of time browsing the news on my phone or laptop now. It doesn’t make me feel good and it’s such a waste of my energy.

Still tired

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I have finished with the coaching for now. I sent her the email and she replied saying she was going to recommend the same thing, because I obviously wasn’t recovering well enough to benefit from it. I have never felt that she was out to make money (and probably undervalues her time) so I think it was genuine. I might start it back again when I’m feeling better. At the moment I am running 3x a week with that being split between a 60 minute long run, a 30-40 minute easy run and a 30-40 minute ‘fartlek’ (i.e. impromptu speed bursts as and when I feel like it). I am still feeling really tired. My fartlek this week was Parkrun, which I completed in an underwhelming 27 minutes (in the middle of a 40 minute run overall), and I felt completely exhausted in the afternoon.

The other thing is my knee. It was bothering me a bit a few months ago and seemed to have sorted itself out… until, ironically, I was unwell and really cut back on the running. Basically it seems to be classic runners’ knee, i.e patella femoral pain syndrome (PFPS). PFPS is thought to be caused by the kneecap moving slightly out of alignment with the groove it’s supposed to sit in, which can be caused by the usual suspects (tight muscles, overpronation, lack of hip stability). In my case this means vague aches and tightness around the kneecap. It doesn’t really hurt, it just feels a bit off.

I was going to phone the physio yesterday but I had a few other thoughts over the weekend. Some points in no particular order: 1. My outer hip (glute, maybe IT band, probably TFL too) has been tight and achy lately. 2. I know my lateral quad is tight because I can often feel the tendon clicking just above the knee. 3. I’ve noticed lately when running I often catch my foot on my opposite ankle as my leg swings through. This article about the issue has the classic ‘your glutes are weak’ line, but also says it might be due to poor hip extension causing you to twist to get the range of motion that you need. Now that’s interesting because 4. Since I had the coaching, my stride length has massively increased, which means… I need a lot more hip extension than I used to.

So before I phone the physio I’m going to try seriously fixing things myself this week, which is going to involve a 20-30 minute hip strength session every other day and daily stretching and self massage. I actually had the same thing last summer and it seemed to resolve itself with some more attention to general strength and stretching, so I shouldn’t really need a physio appointment…

100!

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I did my 100th Parkrun this last weekend. I ran another post lockdown PB, beating my time two weeks ago by one second!

My knee is kind of ehh. It was fine after parkrun, but I also ran today and it wasn’t great. The problem now is that I have been stretching a lot, because my quads were very tight, and I’m not really sure exactly what I’m feeling. Like I’m pretty sure that a lot of the discomfort now is actually just above my knee in the quads, maybe the tendon, and that’s ok because it’s probably just the effects of stretching. Some of it seems to be down the side, probably the IT band, which isn’t really ideal, but is better than the kneecap.

I have a half marathon in four weeks and I’ve missed one long run now so I’m feeling a bit antsy about that. I’m aiming to do the next one on Wednesday, so I’ve got a couple of days to get it recovered and feeling stronger. But these muscle imbalance injuries can drag on at a low level for a long time. I might try ordering a knee brace…

The weather is supposed to be pretty ridiculous for the next two days. I’ve never known it go past maybe 33 degrees here, and yet we’re forecasting two days of 38. So I have no urge whatsoever to run in that heat.

Monty is going to hate the heat, but at least he’s been to the groomers recently. We took him out this morning for what will probably be his last long walk until Wednesday and met a slightly odd man who became very disapproving when he learnt that Monty is a cockapoo, not a poodle, and wanted us to justify our decision to get a cockapoo instead of a poodle and started on a diatribe about purebred dogs going extinct because of ‘fashion’.

Hmm, well, though it pains me to agree with him, poodles are amazing and maybe one day in the future…. But wait a minute here, purebreeding has its own set of ethical issues and I’m not sure you can really claim a moral high ground over supporting a eugenics program. And anyway, I’m just here to walk my little guy, not to be told his existence is an affront to nature. I will definitely be avoiding him in future.

Runner’s knee 😠

~ e.v. ~ 1 Comment

After a few weeks of relatively heavy running load… I have runner’s knee 🤦‍♂️. Which is to say a vague ache around the kneecap. I don’t think I’ve ever had this before. My hip and hamstring had been tight for a week or so, so that’s probably what caused it, along with high volume. I did intervals on Wednesday (3x1km, 2x400m, 4x200m) which felt OK while I was running but on the dog walk later I could feel some pressure around the kneecap so I haven’t run since. I bought some resistance bands and have been doing lateral walks and monster walks all round the house to work my hips, so I’m hoping that will fix it. It feels OK again now, except it was a tiny bit achy when I woke up this morning. I’ll try a few kilometres later and see how it feels…

The Conservative leadership election! Is it just me or do the candidates seem a bit… low quality? And there are so many of them! We have Sunak, who raised taxes during a period of high inflation, while his wife was using non-domiciled status to avoid taxes. Oh and he also broke the law while chancellor, and he’s campaigning on a ticket of fixing the economy… despite being in charge of the economy for the last few years 😕. He has strong backing within the party 😕😕😕, which I can only infer is the result of widespread substance abuse in Westminster. Javid has previously avoided taxes by claiming non-dom status. Zawahi is currently under investigation over his tax arrangements. Then we’ve got Hunt whose entire thing is standing at the side trying to look like the adult in the room, rather than doing anything to prove that he is – remember how that worked out with Theresa May? Braverman seems to think the right to be horrible to trans people is the most pressing political issue of our time, which I find completely baffling because a) it’s really nasty, and b) it’s a total fringe issue that affects so few people. Grant Shapps somehow managed to be the only candidate to say something sensible on the trans matter (“I don’t think it’s important, let people live their lives”) but he has rather a dubious history in other matters. And then finally Liz Truss just comes across as a simpleton.

They go through multiple rounds of MPs voting until there’s only two left, then it goes to the membership, who tend to have substantially different (read: more insane) opinions than MPs. It looks like it’ll be Rishi Sunak vs someone else, and I think it’s fairly likely that Rishi will lose because he’s not insane. I hope it’s not Braverman.