Training Week #15

So as you know, during week 14 I had started feeling quite a bit of pain in m knee and so for week 15 in the training schedule I got a free guest pass to LA Fitness by my work and each day I'd go in and do the bike for 40 minutes. NO PAIN! YAY! I didn't even try to walk Green Lake (grumble grumble). Nothing with an impact that could set back my knee. If it hurt my knee I stopped immediately. Icing it every night, I even went and got an IT band roller to work out my leg (at the advice of multiple running friends). 

After a full 5 days of no running, and no pain it was Dawg Dash 10k time. The morning of the race I felt good. I'd been able to go up and down stairs with no pain, walking around with nothing hurting and so I thought it was a sign of my knee healing up. 

I started the race and felt pretty good for the first mile. I had a slight twinge one mile in, but it quickly subsided and I thought it was just part of my body getting warmed up since it went away. Throughout mile 2 it started to kick in a lot more though. Especially on the hills. I ended up having to stop and walk for little pieces, resting the knee and when I'd start back up the pain would subside. And then it'd increase and I'd have to walk. This continued through mile 2 and 3. During Mile 4 it started to be pretty damn excruciating. I was basically running in constant pain and bending my knee was starting to get pretty difficult. 

I'd made it a little over the 4 mile mark and at this point was pretty much just walking. And by walking I mean limping. And by limping I mean hobbling along being able to walk with my right and pretty much being locked leg on my left because bending my knee made me want to scream. And at this point in the race I was on a very narrow path. Runners for the 10k going both directions (there was a turn around at one point on the path). And I was pretty much directly in everyone's way. AWESOME. Given the amount of pain just hobbling around, I stopped and told a volunteer I was injured and needed to be brought back to the finish. Well apparently these volunteers SUCKED. No way to communicate with the main camp and no way to transport injured people off the course....SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?! At the 26th Annual Dawg Dash you have NOT YET figured out that people get injured and MAY need help getting off the course?!?! I wanted to bitch slap the idiot volunteers who told me I would just have to WALK the last 2 miles back. If I COULD walk I WOULD you freaking MORON!!!

Luckily, the point in the course was just directly across from the parking lot we'd parked in. So I texted my mom and told her to meet me at the car, and then proceeded to hobble my ass down the hill and across the street to the lot. By this point I'm infuriated. Infuriated at the incompetent volunteers, at the horrible pain in my knee and the fact that I see the last almost 4 MONTHS of training slipping out from under me.....I'm basically a MONTH till race day and I can't run 4 miles without my knee going out of commission....W. T. F.

The rest of the day was spent with my knee iced and elevated. Most of which I could not bend it without pain. But by the evening my range of motion had improved drastically, and I had my cousin Annie running me through some positions via phone (btw Annie you're thebomb.com! Thank you for dealing with my depressed as via phone to help figure out what the heck was going on!) to try and figure out if I'd done something severe to my knee. I was able to do a lot of the movements without pain which was a good sign. And luckily a week ago during the 7 miler I couldn't finish I'd been smart enough to request an appointment with my doc. 

Through it all I was trying to keep my motivation and positive frame of mind. That this was NOT going to sideline me for this race. That I'd push through. Figure out a solution......because nothing is EVER lost.