From time to time I bring up the problem I have with my left knee.  I would like to give new visitors to my blog some background information regarding the issue with my knee.  Last August I began training for the Honolulu Marathon.  Things were going pretty well and I was training a bit ahead of schedule.  Although I knew that increasing mileage more than 10% week can lead to injuries, I ignored the advice because, well… that’s the way I roll.  My Neanderthal-like, over achieving ways finally caught up with me.  The same Neanderthal, “take no prisoners” approach served me well at sports when I was a youngster. It allowed me to push through and qualify to serve with a special unit in the military.  That “gut busting” attitude allowed me to return to base after tough missions.   Jeff, calls this the “meat head” syndrome.  Yes, it has served me well through the years, but alas… this high mileage body finally gave in.

By the time my long runs were at 15 miles, my left knee started giving me a bit of a problem.  I hung at 15-16 mile long runs for a couple of weeks, but my knee was getting progressively worse.  Instead of throttling back, meat head syndrome set in and, of course, I added mileage.  When I was doing 18 mile long runs, my knee would collapse and I would actually fall.  I was able to stand the steady state pain, but I was getting extremely sharp pains as a precursor to my knee collapsing.  I saw a sports medicine doctor and the diagnosis was chondromalacia (runner’s knee).  You can look up chondromalicia on the internet, but the short story is that it is a break down of the cartilage under my knee cap.  It can also cause the knee cap not to track properly… hence, “fall down”.  I can actually “click” my knee back onto the track.  For some, the injury can be minimized almost to the point of normalcy.  However, the cartilage under my knee cap has suffered extensive damage and, unfortunately, for me it is a permanent injury.  She prescribed physical therapy.  So what do you think I asked her?  Yep, you guessed it… I asked if I could still train.  (Insert long pause here so you can shake your head).  She told me that her experience with athletes is that you can’t tell them they can’t train so she said, “do it as long as you can stand the pain”.  My physical therapist said that if I strengthen my leg muscles, it would help keep my knee cap on its track.  Well, I tried to continue training, but during an 18 mile run I actually fell on the pavement around 3 times.  Well, that was the end of my serious running.

Ok, now that I got the background information out of the way, I will post today’s workout.  I’ve used too much of your time already so I will try to keep it short.

I did a 5k run treadmill run at the gym today.  The good news is that my knee did not collapse nor did I get that sharp pain that I often get on runs.  However, the steady state pain was still there.  My knee still hurts a bit this evening.  That is pretty normal though.  I hope I can continue these short runs.

After my run I did P90X chest and back.  Since I just finished my run, I didn’t have to warm up.  I went right into the exercises.  I did the routine in the gym.

When I got home, I wanted to work on my core.  I also wanted to do a few rounds of tabata training.  So I did a mix of kettlebells, body weight and abs/core circuits.  I love these tabata intervals.