Injury Frustration

If you are an athlete you understand the frustration you feel when you have a nagging injury.

Athletes, whether young or old, elite or amateur, all have in common this innate need to drive their bodies to do the most it can do regardless of whether or not injury my occur. Once injury occurs the difficulty in doing what is needed in order to get well and stay well is enormous. And as my coach says it "it is always an experiment of one".

If you've followed my blog for any time you know that 3 years ago I tore my meniscus. This has translated into arthritis in my left knee and so any time I do anything different with running such as increasing speed too fast, changing surfaces too much, more hills than usual, my knee acts up.

Such is the case at this time. After getting a personal best time at the Cowtown Half Marathon my knee is once again "acting up". This does not mean re injury it simply means that it's reacting to something different and my coach and I must figure out what that "difference" is and put that in our stash of "what not to do next time" so that in the future we will eliminate the stressor. The Cowtown Half Marathon is extremely hilly, but I trained on hills. My pace was fast but I trained for a fast pace. There are 2 - 2.5 miles downhill on brick streets in this race. The surface is hard, uneven and unrelenting.

The change in the surface on a long downhill at a fast pace tells the coach and my doctor that this is the trigger to the knee inflammation. Sigh...frustration.

Now comes the part that is so difficult. Rest, rebuild, rest, rebuild...I get so tired of this cycle. And yet it is what must be done and so this is where I am with running. It is indeed a love/hate relationship.