Running by feel

My last 2 twelve km runs were without the Garmin. I just ran by feel. I also ran without tape. I felt some medial knee pain on both runs. I probably still need to tape my knee for a while longer.

It was quite windy and cold today. The gate on the bridge over Coffs Creek was locked tonight for some reason. I think there was a concert at the Botanice Gardens. So I had to change my running route. I was forced to run out on the highway.

I have now run 1000 miles this year.

Uncertain

I try for a running comeback tomorrow morning.

I’ve been thinking that it is not a matter of if I get injured, it is a matter of when. Then the trick is to manage the injury. I just hope that the injury doesn’t turn into a biggie that stops me running long term.

So far this year I have had:

achilles tendonitis

shin splints

ball of foot pain

calf pain

hamstring strain

The top 4 injuries have not stopped me running. I’m hoping the hamstring is the same.

I am at a cross roads. I can’t run with the knee tape it seems, and I hope can continue to run without it.

This is my next big step into the unknown in terms of my knee.

Herald heroes

I’ve created a fundraising page for my City to Surf race.  It’s for breast cancer research. I want to run run this race in memory of my mother who died from breast cancer in 1987.

My fundraising page is called Run for Grace.

http://city2surf.everydayhero.com.au/paul__sheringham

Doing the walk of life

Without my knee taped.

I only need the tape to run now. That’s a big step forward. I never thought I’d get there.  A lot of hard work.

I still can’t stop. All day at work I exercise my quads. I’m so close to getting my life back to normal. Now I am so close I probably feel more nervous and impatient.

The good thing is that when I am 100% better, maybe what I’ve been through will become a more distant memory.

Maybe then the knee injury emphasis of this blog will have run its course? I have read over some of the older posts on here, and they aren’t easy to relive.

I WIN KNEE PAIN

Sometimes the things you have to work hardest for give the greatest sense of achievment.

I’ve done it. I’ve won the battle of the maltracking patella.

Tonight I walked 5. 3km without my knee taped. Only I know how hard I’ve worked to achieve this. I’ve done the Muttonbitd Island walk countless times in various stages of pain over three and a half years.

Down past the Jetty restuarants hoping that my knee might be alright. Waiting for good trains that shake the earth under my feet at the railway crossing, when the boom gates close and the red light flashes. It hurts when I stop walking.

Out along the breakwall near the Marina, the tightness and pain starting. A big swell sweeping the wall and sometimes overtopping it. The 8:30am Virgin Blue flight coming into land; the spring carpet of Senecios turning Muttonbird Island yellow;  the winter tide washing the rocks at the base of dog beach, or the tide miles out to sea.  Many seasons have come and gone during this battle. Turn around at the base of Muttonbird Island, try to stretch hammies and ITB to loosen up.

I recall saying to my knee, I just want to walk without pain is that too much to ask? The vice like tightness, the burning nerve pain, everywhere, the eye watering pain behind the knee cap. With me everyday of my life.

Out across the dog beach the burning nerve pain used to really set in. Back along Orlando Street pushing through the pain. A pain that I knew would make my life a misery walking down the mall during the week. The stress making me feel dizzy and heavy.  My thoughts spiralling down into darkness, frustration, anger and despair.

Drivers on Orlando honking their horns, or screaming abuse at me. Leave me alone with my pain will you hoons! The drunks rolling home from the Pier Hotel. The pink light of 19 Orlando Street shining. Thinking do people really go in there?

The little girl riding her bike who looked at me and asked “Why so angry?” 

The wonder when I discovered McConnell taping and got immediate pain relief. No knee pain? The screaming had stopped for a moment.

The brief moments of pain relief when I thought I was getting somewhere, the knee cap falling back into its groove; then the horrible setback when a new physiotherapist suggested taping my knee more lightly. The knee cap went further off track that time, I could feel the cartiledge peeling off the side of my knee.

Up the hill on Harbour Drive knowing that I would pay for this walk later on. The pain screaming again like a voice that would never be quiet.

Those days in March 2007 when my foot felt like it was on fire and I’d get an eye watering burning pain in my knee while sitting at my desk at work and not even the tape would work. My life dimished in so many ways. Thinking that I needed surgery.

Obsessed with stretching my hammies, ITB and VMO activations.

People at work no longer wanting to hear, calling me lazy. That was the most frightening thing of all, not even my family wanted to know. A battle I had to fight on my own.

Only my counsellor, Peter, listened. Thanks for that. And of course Brad the physiotherapist who turned the injury around. Am I lucky I saw him? You bet! He said I took the prize for the weakest vastus medialis obliquus (inner quad muscle) he had ever seen. He said that it might take 12 months to rehab my knee and then I might run up to 5km. That was November 2006.

Well it took two and a half years, but I have run up to 20kms. How is that for exceeding expectations?

A knee cap that sounded like a tree branch was breaking. I couldn’t walk to the car without a strangling tightness grippng my inner quad.  I’d dip my leg into the Sawtell Pool to get repsite on the weekends. I actually learnt to swim, depsite hating the pool. Walking around Woolies was a challenge.

Never giving up, doing the strenghtneing and stretching and massage. Trying to eke out every ounce of strenghth in my wasted VMO. Like chipping away at a mountain. Imagining every sign of improvement, resigned to every set back.

Going to sleep with a pillow under or between my knees. Falling to sleep after another set of quad squeezes. Squeezing the pillow even in the dark, obsessed with fighting the battle. Swearing that if I never beat the knee pain I would keep fighting it until my dieing day!

The lunch time walks around Maclean Street oval. Three laps, stretches before and after. Swearing at the knee pain so much one of the neighbours complained as I went past.

The around the block walk after work. The long walk through the car park at Park Beach Plaza.  The fire in the knee always reaing its ugly head.

I kept fighting and figthing and there were moments when my knee started to feel better.

September 2007. One day my knee cap moved over a notch and felt alright. I saw the Eels play the Bulldogs at ANZ. I even ran for the train.

In Perth in Christmas 2007, doing a pain free walk in Meelup Regional Park, playing a round of golf.

Like the field trip to Royal National Park in May 2008. Full days out in the field doing what I love, botany, and no pain.

I ran first on the 18th June 2008. I started to run near the Coffs Sailing Boat club, angry with everything. I ran screaming out loud along the cycle path.

“Come on knee pain. What have you got?” I challenged it.

I swore about how much I hated Coffs Harbour.

I ran all the back to my unit and collapsed on my welcome mat, and curled into a ball and cried for I’m not sure how long, before going inside.  

Remarkeably I found the knee hurt just about as much running as it did walking.

Over the next few weeks I taped my knee and braved some more runs around the Muttonbird Island Circuit. I ran like a zephyr and a slight breeze.

The knee would hurt medially for about a kilometre but then it would warm up.

I went in my first cross country run in two decades in July. I did 24:45 and finished about 20th out of 28 runners. Sometimes the nerve pain stop me running during the week.

Often I’d throw the knee tape off because the pain would be too much. I ran in serveral more races with varying levels of pain until a run at Emerald Beach in early August.

I ran pain free that day and experienced the most unbelievable runners high.

I’ve run 800km with my knee taped.

But tonight I walked 5.3km without pain, without knee tape

I WIN KNEE PAIN

Unexpected long run

The way I was limping after Friday night’s race wasn’t expecting to get in a run at all today.

I got in a 10 mile run in 92:03. 6:01, 5:30, 5:22, 5:18, 5:23, 5:31, 5:35, 5:47, 5:47, 5:48, 5:42, 5:55, 6:09, 6:06, 6:09, 6:00 

Wasn’t worried about pace, just concentrated on getting through pain free. My calf area was a bit stinging for a few km as I warmed up. The last 4 km at over 6 minutes/per km dented my pride a little bit, but I decided not to push. I guess it really shows my lack of endurance.

I was running out on a grassy field without any shade, so the heat takes its toll. I was extremely thirsty when I finished. I got a feeling of pleasant tiredness I remembered getting at the end of a long run in my other runnning life.

By the time I finished there was no pain at all. Just a stiffness and soreness. The pain was high up in the calf which doesn’t worry me as much as the achilles niggles I have been having.

So all in all happy with notching up another long run.

I think that I might try to get to Sydney in March and go on a long run at Lady Carrington Drive. How good will that be?

Big Ironbark Bongil Bongil

Extreme Ways

I had to close down everything
I had to close down my mind
Too many things caught me
Too much could make me blind
I’ve seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn’t even believe

Moby Extreme Ways

Last night I didn’t sleep very well at all. I was so hyped after yesterdays run I couldn’t shut down. It wasn’t so much a runners high as a runners low. My mind was going a hundred miles an hour going over the events of the race before and after.

Today I went for an easy pool jog. The calf injury seems to be settling down as the day goes on. It is more of a tightness/stiffness in the calf rather than pain now.

The other thing is that I went shopping without the knee tape on with out any ill effect.

Three years on and I might actually beat this maltracking patella. I might be able to walk each day without my knee taped up. I’ll still have to wear to run and ride a bike.

Woolgoolga Bunch of Fives Track Race

This was the last race in a series of 5 races. The race is 12.5 laps arund a grass athletics track. The temperature was 83 degrees farenheit, bright and sunny, without a breath of wind stirring the trees around the picturesque Woolgoolga Sports ground.

I went into the race feeling niggle free and hopeful of a good race. The race started and I was up in the top 5 runners, feeling confident.

The first kilometre was 3:55.

Happy with that. I notice that I’m working hard, blowing heavily. I’m keeping up with some of the other runners.

Second kilometre 4:08. Slowing more than I would like.

Third kilometre 4:16. Ouch! there is some pain in my calf as I go to past a runner. So I back off a bit. I get lapped once and then twice by the first and second place getters who are running 18 & 19 minutes for 5km.

I think of my best time for 5km 15:55. And I have a lot of respect for the runner I once was in my previous running life. A shy kid with not a lot of confidence in himself.

“You were pretty fast young Quinkin.” I’d tell that kid if I could, to give him the boost of confidence he deserved.

Fourth kilometre 4:35. Slowing down more than I would like, and I don’t have the energy to chase the runners in front, I’m worrying more about someone catching from behind. Someone does, but it is only the third place getter lapping me.

Fifth kilometre 4:39. Disappointing. I go trough the 5km in 21:33. However, I’m not at the finishing line yet. I press the Garmin at the finish and I get a time of 22:47 for a distance covered of 5.29km.

I finish 8th male and 9th overall, out of 22.

Not very happy with the time of the way I faded in the last 2kms. I thought I was in better shape than that. Also I wonder about the discrepancy between the Garmin’s measurement of 5.3km for a 5km track race.  Is the Garmin that far out or is the track long?

As soon as I finish I start to limp on a sore calf/achilles. The pain seems to be right at the top of my achilles. The race really sets back my confidence a notch to two. I start to think I’m too old and past it to run fast like I did in my twenties, when just last week I was thinking that if I train consistently then I could run sub 4 minute kilometres regularly.

I wait for the prizes to be awarded for the place getters in the mens and ladies.

A lady ultra marathon runner asks me how my knee is. She’s a really nice person. She says that an athlete she knows with achilles/calf problems wears skins compression socks. Might give them a go. She tells me that her knee is sore and she is running a six hour race tomorrow. Amazing! I tell her that my knees OK, but my achilles/calf is sore. I think to myself I’ll be lucky to be running again in three days.

Thats the funny thing, because I have my knee tape, people ask me how it is. The thing is with my magic McConnell taping my knee doesn’t give me much trouble at all. In fact my knee is almost better. That makes all these calf and achilles problems I’m having even more annoying.

Running is good for my knee

There has been recent research looking at runners and non runners and knee pain. The research reveals that there is little evidence to suggest that running is bad for your knees and will eventually wear them out. It is a myth apparently, along with the popular tale that cartiledge will not repair itself when damaged. It can! 

Robert DeCastella in an ABC radio interview, said that while he was running competitively he had few injury problems. It was when he stopped running that he suffered knee pain. The muscles around his knees became weaker,  causing some biomechanical problems The answer was to strengthen and exercise the muscles and get back out running.

In fact the stronger you can  get your muscles and tendons around your knee, the better off you will be in fighting knee injuries. Running helps to lose weight as well, so there is less impact in the joints.

People who are unable or will not exercise are worse off. Their muscles and tendons become weak, they gain weight and this puts pressure on the heart and lungs.

In my opinion the reasons knee wear out it possibly more to do with long term biomechanical dsyfunction causing wear and tear. If you can sort out the biomechanical probelms like pronation, quad and glute muscle imbalances, ITB tightness etc etc, and run with the knee tracking smoothly, then running will improve your knees.

I think I have proved this theory correct. By running, I am fighting fire with fire. The more I run the stronger my quads and glutes get, and the less knee pain I get, the closer I get to having a normal knee function again.

Crucial in getting me started down this path to recovery was McConnell knee taping. It cheats by giving me closer to normal quad balance than when I am not wearing tape.

An 8km and a 16km run

On Friday I ran 8km in 42:41. I was hampered by my achilles tendon on the left hand side. This was extremely annoying, because I had thought that I wasn’t going to have any trouble before the run.

On Saturday I did a pool jog. I did about 50 minutes. I pool jog slowly from the deep end to the 1.8 metre mark, then I go fast from the 1.8km back to the deep end. It’s like a kilometre interval. I did five of these.

My achilles was still tender. I noticed it climbing down the steps into the pool. So I decided that I would not try to run again on land until Tuesday next week.

Come Saturday night my achilles felt much better. I really worked hard at the stretches and heel drops/calf raises. When I went to bed, I thought that I was on for an 8km run in the morning.

Sunday morning dawned bright and hot and humid like so many day in Coffs Harbour this summer. Driving to the park, I decided to see if I could run 16km. I started easily, no pain in the achilles, I sped up until about the fourth km.

I was just concentrating on being pain free. I didn’t get any tenderness in the tendon until after 8km, which I ran in 44 minutes. There was a few twinges from 9km to 12km, probably the discomfort was more in my calf. By then I’d really slowed down to over 6 minute kilometres. I think it was the heat and humidity that made even that pace seem harder than it was.

So I finished the ten miles in 94:48. Six minutes slower than my last 10 mile run a few weeks ago. Slow as a wet weak but I did it.

Now it’s Sunday night and my achilles doesn’t feel too bad. I feel better about my immediate running future than I did on Friday.

What I have really noticed in the last few days is that my VMO is finally starting to take over from my VL muscle when I’m not wearing tape. After three years I might be going to really beat this maltracking knee cap.