Shhh... The knee can hear you!
Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 14 miles at 8:32 pace.
For my first real run since last Saturday, when the knee became intolerable, I was thinking I'd do 10-12 miles, tops. By the time the K-Stars' circle up and prove your machismo by announcing your distance and pace began, I had been convinced by Mike and Meredith to join them on the 14 mile route I had designed with Galen's help for a run about a month ago. Galen was to join us, as was Greg. And we knew Chris was coming so we waited a bit for him.
It was a humid day. The overcast belied the warmth. Almost immediately, my heart rate monitor was in palpatations: 172! What's with 172? Had the mere 4 miles I had run in the previous 6 days reduced my conditioning? Was the pace too fast? It wasn't until we were halfway down Sunset Blvd. that Mike struck upon the most likely
hypothesis: the humidity was increasing the workload, and responsible for that additional 8-10 bpm.
[Sunset Boulevard is an entirely less consequential road than the Sunset of my childhood town of Los Angeles. It is nice enough, but there's no Carney's, no Tower Records, no Whiskey, no enormous billboards. And it ends at a lake, not in the Pacific Palisades.]
I consistently and jokingly admonished Meredith for leading the pace, since she had announced that she was seeking to run at 9 minutes per mile, and she was going much faster than that. The group was a bit playful today: at the hill leading to the vista of Ocean Beach, Mike and I exchanged sudden bursts of speed for no good reason. We also teased Galen that he had lost his route-specification privileges (unless I measure it), due to his mistake of last week (19.7 instead of 18), and then reinforced since he was certain we were to loop around the Lake the other way (I knew that would make it over 16 instead of 14).
By the time we reached the Great Highway, my left knee was sending no signs of trouble. This was good! About 7 miles in and just fine. Of course, shortly after Galen asked, and I said I wasn't going to discuss it because it would hear us talking about it, the knee started to register. Fortunately, it was just that: registering. I could feel the ligament against the plica, but not consistently, and without real pain. In the last four miles, I started to feel a bit of pain on and off, and I was sort of pooping out towards the end (I didn't have the strength or will to push harder towards the end).
I spent the several hours after I got home on the couch. It feels like I'm out of shape!
For my first real run since last Saturday, when the knee became intolerable, I was thinking I'd do 10-12 miles, tops. By the time the K-Stars' circle up and prove your machismo by announcing your distance and pace began, I had been convinced by Mike and Meredith to join them on the 14 mile route I had designed with Galen's help for a run about a month ago. Galen was to join us, as was Greg. And we knew Chris was coming so we waited a bit for him.
It was a humid day. The overcast belied the warmth. Almost immediately, my heart rate monitor was in palpatations: 172! What's with 172? Had the mere 4 miles I had run in the previous 6 days reduced my conditioning? Was the pace too fast? It wasn't until we were halfway down Sunset Blvd. that Mike struck upon the most likely
hypothesis: the humidity was increasing the workload, and responsible for that additional 8-10 bpm.[Sunset Boulevard is an entirely less consequential road than the Sunset of my childhood town of Los Angeles. It is nice enough, but there's no Carney's, no Tower Records, no Whiskey, no enormous billboards. And it ends at a lake, not in the Pacific Palisades.]
I consistently and jokingly admonished Meredith for leading the pace, since she had announced that she was seeking to run at 9 minutes per mile, and she was going much faster than that. The group was a bit playful today: at the hill leading to the vista of Ocean Beach, Mike and I exchanged sudden bursts of speed for no good reason. We also teased Galen that he had lost his route-specification privileges (unless I measure it), due to his mistake of last week (19.7 instead of 18), and then reinforced since he was certain we were to loop around the Lake the other way (I knew that would make it over 16 instead of 14).
By the time we reached the Great Highway, my left knee was sending no signs of trouble. This was good! About 7 miles in and just fine. Of course, shortly after Galen asked, and I said I wasn't going to discuss it because it would hear us talking about it, the knee started to register. Fortunately, it was just that: registering. I could feel the ligament against the plica, but not consistently, and without real pain. In the last four miles, I started to feel a bit of pain on and off, and I was sort of pooping out towards the end (I didn't have the strength or will to push harder towards the end).
I spent the several hours after I got home on the couch. It feels like I'm out of shape!
posted by Brent at
8:22 PM
3 Comments:
First: The circling up is not to "prove your machismo" but to help organize the group and have people find others to run with. :)
Second: As I said before, you're highly unlikely to lose all of your fitness in a week. A little coordination, perhaps. But the rest should have done you good.
Third: You know you wanted to do 14. :)
By
Anonymous, at 10:36 PM
Circling up comment: facetious. Just kidding.
Fitness loss: was merely a reflection of what we discussed, and something that I was wondering about, so reflecting about it in the blog was narrative.
14: wanted? I dunno. What I wanted was for my knee to not hurt, and go as long as I could given that my knee would start to hurt eventually...
By
Brent, at 11:17 PM
Facetious: Yeah, I know. I was just clarifying for the errant reader who wouldn't know. But you knew that I knew. Just as I knew you knew that I knew. ... :)
Fitness loss: In some weird way, just like you were trying to document what you were thinking about, I guess I was just trying to document our conversation on the topic. I've noticed that I've been doing that a lot with these comments -- documenting things I've already told you. Not because I think you wouldn't remember, but more for completeness sake.
Wanting 14: Okay, that was my turn to be facetious. But you knew that. :)
By
Anonymous, at 8:04 AM
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