The Knee, as I've taken to calling it, is now exhibiting pain. So this morning I did the unthinkable and veered from my training schedule by skipping my 5-miler.
The plus side is that the weird loose, dislocated feeling is mostly gone. Now the knee is just crunchy when bent/extended, snappy when going upstairs or squatting, and I've got mild pain on the sides, like where the IT band connects and its medial counterpart. So it kind of feels like progress. But I'm just staying off it today. Tomorrow morning I will do a nice slow 5-miler and just see how things go, and then if all goes well I'll do my long run on Monday instead of Sunday.
The irony is, I already cut a 2-mile recovery run this week in order to scoot all runs up a day so I can change my long run day to Saturday, since I have EMT class all day Sundays. But whatever.
It's incredibly frustrating to be able to walk, work out, and even run on The Knee, but still feel like it's seconds from doom. It's like, am I being over-cautious? Should I just run through it? But then I think about how it'll be if I actually severely injure myself and I'm just too worried. I have no health insurance and EMT requires me to be able to, you know, walk and run, not to mention I will definitely be out of the marathon. If I hurt myself really badly I'm boned. On the other hand, this training schedule is tight and there's only so many runs I can skip to baby my knee before things get dire.
So as far as workouts go today, I might do today's Bodyrock this evening in between work and EMT class. We'll see how the knee feels. Food: I wasn't hungry at all this morning and have been fasting. I'm starting to feel hungry, so I think I'll go grab some Moby Dick's.
Please don't die, Knee. I need you so badly.
