Tag Archives: Knee

Help, doubts!

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To make a long story short: My knee is still not completely recovered. So while Stephan could nicely begin his Mont Blanc Marathon training, my goals are a bit more modest: (1) run for (at least) an hour without pain during or after the run and (2) participate in Voorne’s duinentrail (website) on December 9 (indeed, coming Sunday…). All achievable goals you might say, but what if I tell you I had 3 weeks to complete them and had to start at the very beginning with 15 minutes of running/walking in a 1:1 ratio? Makes it a little harder right!?

I must admit that 3 weeks ago I did not expect to come so close to really do this, but I ran 52 minutes last Tuesday. Unfortunately, that was the first time my knee hurted a little bit again when walking the stairs afterwards. However, everything was fine the next day so today we went for a run of at least 60 minutes in, oh yeah, snow! 🙂 We were out for 75 minutes, of which we walked a few, and I am really curious to how my knee will be tomorrow! I mean, if it is fine then, it should be able to make it through a 18 km race on Sunday, right? Ahhh, I know the safe option is to not go of course, but well, if it is possible I do really really like to go! Please help? Anyone?

And I know it is cold, but which runner would not like to run in a snowy, magical world like this? Plus it is a great excuse to reward yourself afterwards with home-made apple pie 😀

Duinentrail Schoorl 2012

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Welcome back! As you might remember, we were going to run the duinentrail in Schoorl. The event was last Sunday, and because it’s an 1,5 hour drive we decided to go there for a long weekend instead of just for the event itself. We arrived Friday in the end of the afternoon in a drizzling rain, hoping the weather would be better the rest of the weekend. I mean, hiking and running are a lot more fun when done in sunshine 😉 However, during the night we had some of the heaviest thunderstorms I have ever heard, so that was promising…

Saturday we went out to explore the area where the race would be, so we made a 15 km hike through the dunes of Schoorl. It’s a quite a beautiful dune area with a diverse nature and some steep dunes that would be absolute hell to run!

After the hike we could already collect our race bibs at a hotel. When we came home I got a little scared something was wrong because I did not receive a timing chip, but then I realized I probably said I would use my own chip when I signed up…. At that point I also started to get a little worried about my knee. Stephan decided to switch to the 14k, but I figured my knee would probably hold up after a month of active rest. Meaning: no running, but a lot of biking, hiking and knee exercises. But only time could really tell if everything went well, or would be a minor disaster. In every case I had decided to finish, no matter what. So even when I had to walk, I’d try to finish within the time limit of 4,5 hours.

Before the start I was really excited and nervous, did I make the right decision? Well, early on in the race I noticed I did not. Not only did my knee start to hurt after just a few kilometres, but because I had not run for a month it was merely impossible for me to run uphill! Now I know I have never been the biggest fan of running uphill, but at least I used to be capable of it for a while. This time it was a practically impossible to get up any hill, which was really frustrating. After I settled for walking all the uphills it went better, but the pain in my knee was not exactly becoming less. I was longing for the first aid station, but that appeared to be after kilometre 12, which was ‘slightly’ further from where I expected it :p To that point I could stumble on, but when I tried running away from the station the pain was excruciating. After a little bit of walking it was not so bad anymore so I could run the part over the beach. In the next dune section, after about 16k, I unfortunately had to stop, the pain became really too much. By that time I figured I had to be officially the last person on the track, but that I would be able to finish within the time limit anyway. I walked through the rest of the course (after getting a pain killer from another trailer, thanks!) and found out that I had not been the last person at the point I had to walk. In the end I did finish last of course, after 3.45 hours, but at least I did finish and I have a finisher shirt to prove it! 🙂

The next day my knee hurt like hell when we wanted to hike a last round before going home (it did fade after a while and I did not notice it again until after the ride home), and every muscle in my body was sore. After a week now I do not feel it anymore, so hopefully my next very short run will go fine.

So much for running this week

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The week started quite promising with an excellent long run garnished with some sprints up- and downhill. The remainder of that day was filled with a short hike with our dogs and some relaxing in the sun.

The day after Manon and I went shopping for running gear. Our long runs got too long for the amount of water we could carry along with us, so we needed something better. In short: we succeeded, but more on that later, I’ll let Manon do the honours.

Next morning we figured we should put our new toys to the test and decided to go for a relaxed two hour+ run. The plan was to head into the woods and run one of the local mountain bike trails (16,5 km). By the time we reached the starting point of this trail, my knee felt as if someone was hammering a nail into it. Probably one of the downhill dashes, 2 days before, caused an injury. So I decided to take no chances and hiked back to home. During that walk I didn’t feel anything anymore, but running was clearly impossible.

So I decided I would forget about running for a couple of days and give my knee some rest. The things that bugs me is the fact that I have no problems at all during all kind of other activities. Yesterday we went for a 30k hike – without a hitch – and today I played tennis for a couple of hours (for the first time in weeks :$ ), also without any issues.

I suppose I am going to test my knee with a short run tomorrow or the day after, depending on how early I wake up tomorrow. The next couple of days are projected to be very sunny and warm (30° – 35° Celsius), so I want to run when it is relatively cold. I really hope I face no more problems and this was just an onetime issue.