Do I rest or do I run?

I ignored the slight pain when I ran Princess. I iced and rested my knee for a full week before I tried my hand at my next training run of 10 miles. But a sharp pain in my left knee stopped me in my tracks as I ran with friends several weeks back.

It was my own fault. I ran too far in snowy conditions on a test run. But I felt good, until I didn’t.

I stopped running for the next 10 days. Walking wasn’t painful. I traveled to Belgium with my husband and we walked all over four cities. No problem. I decided not to run a planned half marathon in DC in mid-March because I didn’t want to do further damage.

On the 10th non-running day, I headed to the gym to see what I could do.

Three times, I ran one mile. I followed each mile by walking a quarter-mile. By the time I finished, I felt great.

Two days later, I headed outdoors for a five-miler with my running partner Gary.

“How do you feel?” he asked me several times as we ran.

“Great!” I said several times. Then just after our fourth mile, I felt a twinge and asked Gary if we could walk.  Not a problem. We walked about 3 or so minutes before finishing our run. My knee wasn’t throbbing. but rather still felt tweaked.

So I’ve taken off since then. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I haven’t been to a doctor. My knee is just strained, I think set off from running on uneven snow for months on end this summer. But here’s my dilemma:

Coming up this Sunday is the Syracuse Half Marathon, and I have a half in Atlantic City and another in Rochester next month. I’m torn on what to do. I’m considering run-walk intervals and taking my sweet time with the Syracuse race, but am wondering if doing so would just set me up for further injury? That, I don’t want to risk.

 How do you handle a knee injury? What would you do in my shoes? (pun intended)

2 thoughts on “Do I rest or do I run?

  1. Ohhhhh chica. I SO know where you are at right now. Seeing as I’m the in waiting period before going to see ortho #2 for my knee problems, I’d say you’re probably overdoing it and need to give it a rest. That is a LOT of racing in a short time frame. Much as I’ve always been more of a balls to the wall and to hell with everything else kind of runner, resulting in not having run a relatively pain-free half in TWO YEARS, it may not be a bad idea to get your dupa to the doctor and see what he/she says. But PUSH them on a permanent fix, and not a conservative approach. I wasted three months not running and wish I had pushed the issue back then. Good luck and keep us posted!

    • Thanks Kimberley. Racing the event is definitely off the table. Since the course limit is 4 hours, a few friends and I may run-walk it (emphasis on the walk). I had some pain free runs this week with the same interval methods I mentioned above. But if it hurts I will just stop and leave the race. Thanks for your help!

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