2/23/10

Michael and I had a good fundraiser on Wednesday. Michael ended up raising over $400 and I raised over $110. It was a good time.

We had a good group swim session together on Thursday. Time just seemed to fly by it didn't seem like we were in the pool for an hour at all. I was ready to keep going. We had some good conversations afterward.

I took Friday off from training and then met up with Deidra and some of the marathon team on Saturday morning. Deidra and I actually ran 10 miles! I would never have believed I could run 10 miles without walking at least some of the time. Many thanks to our good friend Andy who sacrificed his Saturday morning to give some much needed SAG help. Both Deidra and I were ready for some fluids and nutrition when we reached the half way point. I was very excited after the run. It boosted my confidence in the fact that I might actually be able to complete a triathlon. I may have overdone it a little though. I can't figure it out. I'm still having issues with my knee. Now the issue has spread to my other knee as well. I bought new shoes (which cost more than I've ever spent on a pair of shoes in my life) then I still had issues so I got some inserts (which cost the amount I would normally spend on a pair of shoes). I'm still having knee issues. I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the shoe store where I got my shoes. I've heard nothing but good things about them but they didn't really seem to give me the attention I expected. I continue to throw money at my knees where I could've used the old Nike running shoes and had the same amount of pain.

I've been looking on the internet and found some exercises that should help. I also might look into some sort of brace for my knee to see if that helps. I'm going to see an orthopedist to see if they have any suggestions. Maybe they'll find shoes that'll actually do the running for me! :) Who knows? It might not even be the shoes at all. We'll just have to see. If I don't get the issue solved I guess I'll just resign myself to having pain in my knee when I run. It's 13.1 miles. Should take (at my current pace) between 3 to 3-1/2 hours. I can deal with that. After all cancer patients deal with pain everyday and don't get a break from it.

I read somewhere that runner's knee can be caused by weakness in your thighs or by your hamstring being too tight. That makes sense to me. It seems I have at least a little of both of those going on. Whenever I run outside my thighs are always sore the next day which tells me they're not as fit as the rest of my leg. My hamstrings are always tight so I'm going to have to go back to stretching them daily and see if the combination of exercises for my thighs and stretching for my hammies helps alleviate the problem.

My knees were sore yesterday so i didn't do any running or cycling. Monday is my "pool day" so I went to the gym not fully expecting to be able to do much swimming. Normally when my knees hurt, they hurt when I swim too. But i went ahead and swam anyhow. I was pleasantly surprised when I jumped into the pool my knees didn't bother me. I swam for a while trying to follow the workout that Tim lays out for us. I did my 200 warm up then swam for 10 minutes to see how far i could go (a couple weeks ago I swam 12 laps). This time I swam 14 laps. I'm definitely showing improvement. The issue yesterday wasn't my fitness or soreness in my knees. I was trying the swim routine and it's the same one I've been doing for a couple weeks and as my friend Deidra so eloquently put it, and I paraphrase. I get bored stupid doing the same thing over and over. I stopped swimming after about45-50 minutes. I just couldn't take it any longer. I went and sat in the hot tub for a while. Sure felt good on those sore legs :)