uh oh... the illio tibio is twanging ! the first signs of an old problem made themselves known this weekend with pain on the front of my knee-cap which i know from experience would precede swelling and pain beneath the kneecap due to tension in the itb moving it of it's tracking if left unchecked.
bad news for 57 runs in 57 days.
so i today i've thrown everything in my repetoire at it - rest, foam roller, ice, yoga, protein, massage, and possibly some more rest.
with luck and this sort of attention over the next few days i'll have nipped any further knee problems in the bud.
this has given me cause to pause and ask what it was that's brought it on - i have taken training pain-free for so long that the idea of enforced diversion from my weekly schedule is pretty frustrating. however, flexibility is critical and the designed training plan was not written in stone, or by an expert - and here is an oppurtunity to reveiw and improve it.
writing my own year plan and schedule was largely an exercise in numbers; i have no training in sports science or physiology and only my own epxerieces to draw on. it followed a logic along the lines of - "if i want to improve my running by 5%, then i should do 5% more run training". of course i know that it aint THAT simple, so i read around - find some priniples and theroy that appeals to me, and intergrate that into the schedule, along side swim and bike sessions which are obtained in much the same way. so, with a basic volume derived from data from my own previous years' training log and the session progression and details taken from various resources to which i'm currently subscribing, and have proven results for others. getting it all to fit together is really a case of trial and error though- and the only way of knowing if it WORKED is by better results at the end of the day. and i'll never know whether it might have worked better another way.
one thing for certain though - if i'm getting injured, sick or too fatigued to enjoy it, then it is NOT working, and needs a reveiw. it's a bit of a strange time to be making changes, since i am just approachin the end of my initial 6 weeks 'getting back into it' phase, but here's the list for consideration:
*111 hours of training since a complete rest day -perhaps 100 hours should be the most that i allow myself to go without taking a total 24 hour break
*my diet has been pretty poor during the last 5 weeks of training; i've been deliberatly relaxed about this, which i do believe was a good idea, but perhaps now its time to switch the focus towards more nurishing food as treats
*long run friday night followed by long ride saturday morning - i really do enjoy heading out of the office at the end of the week and running for 2 and a half hours around the park and sights of the city on my way home, but on each occaision that i've organsed to ride on saturday because of a sunday race, my quads have been absolutly shot to bits by monday! that's a lost day of training and, as i'm seeing now, potentially longer if it generates an injury. so - i think that'll be the end of that paticular combo for me.
*complete absence of core and strength work in my schedule. rather - it is in the schedule but i have not been doiong it. it's boring and easy to dismiss it as less important than a run , or rest, or cleaning up, or writing a blog post. its just a matter of getting into the habit, which i have been very sucessful at before once over the initial inertia.
it's quite pleasing to have identified 4 things that i can modify with fairly litte effort and believe that each of them will help keep me on track
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