Ouch

WTF?!?!  Son of a bitch...mother phucker...OMG...pain...intense freaking pain...in the middle of the night...pain like I haven't felt since...well, yeah, since before knee surgery.  PHUCK!!!!  

 

It was the kind of pain that had me sitting straight up in bed and muffling a sudden burst of loud profanities by biting my own hand in less than 2.2 seconds.  Ok, so what the hell just happened?...and where the phuck did that come from? 

 

Yes, I work out a lot.  And, yes I run a lot.  BUT, I have stuck strictly to the rules and guidelines laid out to me by my physical therapist more than a year and a half ago, when he finally cleared me to run again.  I knew that by not following the rules, I would jeopardize my chances of having a long and productive (read: I want some PR's!) running life.  I want to be able to run...run fast...run hard...and PR (personal record) every single race and distance I try. 

 

I want NO LIMITS in my active world and in order to do that I need to follow some very simple rules.  1) No running 2 days in a row...my body needs a least a day in between runs to recover...check!  2) Lift weights and stay strong but no deep knee bends or squats...check (sorta...I try like hell to follow this one, but it's particularly hard for me for some reason)!  3) Cross train, cross train, cross train...um yeah, obviously, check!!  4) Stretch regularly...check-ish (a runner can always be better in this area...especially one who's a multi tasking goddess such as myself :))! 

 

Ok, so there's some room for improvement, but it still doesn't explain why my knee locked up tighter than a bank vault in the middle of the night.  Maybe I pushed too hard when I ran outside yesterday (pulled a 7:49 pace for 4.7 miles...yeah baby!!!!) for the first time in a LONG time. BUT, it was so sunny and warm and spring like...I didn't feel like I was pushing, I was just moving in a zone and letting my legs determine the pace in response to the good vibes I was getting from my surroundings.  (Um yeah, and speaking of surroundings...I'd heard rumors that there was a full service Caribou Coffee bar out on campus at the Hub, but I'd never seen it for myself until yesterday...holy Mother Earth...looks like I need to be finding my way onto campus a bit more often...AWESOME!!!!)  Maybe I increased my weights too much last night in class.  I don't know, but I do know that THIS little locking incident is probably NOT a good sign.  It's not bad either, but it's definitely something I need to pay attention to. 

 

I'm hoping that this was an isolated incident and that it was completely related to the fact that I had run fast and hard outside for the first time after spending months inside on the dreadmill.  If nothing else it means that maybe in my excitement of spring and the upcoming race season, I'm possibly working my way towards overtraining just a little bit.  Time to pull out the Kid Rock again and revisit slowing my roll.  After all, it's only March I don't have to be the fastest and strongest...yet (*wink-wink*).  Big Pig isn't until August, and if I'm going to blow out a knee, it's going to be done crossing the finish line of that race...no options, no excuses, no limits...go hard or go home.  It just means that maybe in the meantime I maybe don't go quite so hard :).