Everything but the knee feels great. Everything but the knee is pretty much recovered from the Los Angeles Marathon. Reviewing the history of the knee problem for possible causes, I realize that it has been a full month with no progress. I guess that means this is not one of those things I should train through.  I hope, though that with a little time off and some stretching it will get better…..

Looking back here is what I found….

• I took 10 days completely off with a strained calf. After 10 days the calf was 100 better..
• The first run was with the kids at Hillview. It was a Friday. It was done spontaneously in jeans and a retired pair of Saucony Stabils.  This run was actually abunch of drills done at a very easy effort. There was lots of starting and stopping.
• The next run was 10 easy miles on Sunday morning with Chuck on the aqueduct. I noted in my blog that my hamstrings were unusually tight.
• I did not run again until Wednesday and on Wednesday’s post I note that I had experienced a twinge in the knee after the run on Sunday. Wednesday’s run was pretty much a bunch of short sprints. (What was I thinking?)
• From then till LA I ran basically 3 times a week. I did some of the Tuesday speed workouts. I ran with Karl at the park a couple of times. I ran a couple of weekend hill runs. On good days the knee would loosen up as I ran and I would be able to complete my workout. Once or twice, however, it was too stiff and sore to give it a go….  The runs I completed were high quality workouts, but the miles were too few to be properly prepared to race a marathon.

So, I plan to stretch, ice and rest.  I hope it get better quick enough to get ready for Mountains 2 Beach. But if not, so be it.  Perhaps I can downgrade M2B to a half….