Running Experiment

My physical therapist decided to try a little experiment today. Since I severely overpronate (i've been told I have feet like Calvin), she taped my feet after our session today, and then asked me to go for a run later. I think the idea was to make my arches "arch" a bit more, but I'm really not sure. I just finished 7 miles, and the main things I notice were that the extra "snugness" was quite comfortable to start, but eventually (around mile 3) the outside edges of my feet started to hurt where they were constricted by the tape. I've never tried running with my feet "bound" before, but I don't think it helped all that much (my knees were still aching a bit after the run, which is the main problem I'm trying to take care of with PT). I guess maybe it's a good thing that I didn't quite know what the therapist was trying to accomplish; that way I couldn't psych myself into thinking it was working or it wasn't.

On an unrelated note, has anybody else noticed how fast Sanoodi has become for route mapping? Since I got my Garmin last year, I haven't needed to use Sanoodi much. But it ended up coming to the rescue today when my Garmin battery died during my run. On previous occasions, it has taken longer for me to map my run than to actually run it! But this time it was blazing, even with the continuous elevation update turned on. They must've upgraded their hardware/software/ISP significantly. Good for them.

Back in the Saddle

You may recall that I injured my knee during my LA Marathon training...various tendons became inflamed and extremely painful anytime I tried running while wearing my knee braces. And I needed those because of my earlier ilio-tibial band injury, which precluded long runs (mroe than 5 miles) without the braces.

After nearly a month of virtually no running, and another several weeks of physical therapy, I went on my first run with my knee braces. I'm happy to report that I ran almost five and a half miles with no inflammation of the tendons in my knee, and thus no pain whatsoever. I'm continuing physical therapy to see if I can strengthen my knees enough so that I can ditch the braces altogether, but at the very least I'm back to where I was before my injury. I do still have occasional pains while running, but it's really no worse than I've always had; at this point I've just ceased to be paranoid about it. If nothing else, this signifies for me a mental shift from "recovering" to being "in training" again.

So, any suggestions for a summer/fall marathon I should run?

So Much for the LA Marathon

It's official: my knee injury has sidelined me for the L.A. Marathon that I was supposed to have run on March 2. For the moment, I am going to be engaged in physical therapy and several weeks worth of cross-training and/or short (no more than 5 mile) runs until the significant inflammation in some tendon or other is reduced. Oh, and I am to stay away from tracks. Apparently the 160 laps (= 640 turns) on the OSU Rec Center's indoor track wasn't particularly healthy for my knee.

The good news is that the doctors at the OSU Sports Medicine clinic have no reason whatsoever to think that the injury will have any long-term consequences. And they'd even like to use the upcoming physical therapy as a way to wean me off of my knee braces permanently. Which is good, because right now the knee brace only seems to be making things worse, by putting unnecessary pressure on my inflamed tendon.

The moral of the story: if you think you need to do a long run, and it's too cold outside, the indoor track is not the answer.