First Injury of the Season

Unfortunately my knee injury has flared up again.  Due to patella tracking problems, I had 3 months off running with boney bruising in the knee after the Torquay Half Ironman in April this year.  This time I have strained the ligament that goes under the knee cap on my left leg.  Last time it took about a month for the inflamation to die down before I could start the rehabilitation that included strengthening some of the stabilising tendons and getting more flexibility into the muslces that pull on the knee cap.  I don't think it is anywhere near as bad this time.

I was so happy with my running form after the last Duathlon.  When I tried to run on the Monday and Tuesday after the race, I noticed the stiffness in my legs and rested from running for the rest of the week.  Monday this week I did a short, easy recovery run which felt fine, so I then did an 18.6km long run on the Tuesday.  The Tuesday run was one of the best long runs I've done - I still had the fluent running action I experienced in the Duathlon and was able to cruise along at a good speed with hardly any effort.  The pace for most of the run was under 5 minutes per kilometre and my HR sat in the mid 140's.  I felt no issues on the run, but was quite stiff 30 minutes or so afterwards.  The right knee felt a little numb, but it didn't really seem anything to worry about.  However on Wednesday morning I felt sharp pains just below my left knee, so I booked a physio appointment for later that day.

Naturally the weather this week has been perfect, which is especially frustrating considering the last 2 weeks have been pretty awful.  Since Tuesday I have only done 1 swim session on Thursday night.  Knowing that I would be quite fresh due to having rested since Tuesday, I moved up into a faster lane - I'm not feeling so fresh anymore.  It was always my intention to move up a lane, I had just been delaying it.  But I think I'll stay there now as it stops me slacking off.

I have two rides this weekend that I am supposed to take easy, then I'll see the Physio again on Monday.  I suspect the injury was caused by some muscles still being too tight from the Duathlon and they then affected my knee on the long run. With any luck I will be running again late next week.