3.17 miles, 23:27
Not a good day. The mosquitos have found my stretching area in Esprit park. It was cold this morning and my circulation is normally poor so my hands were frozen immediately. There were 1,600 18-wheelers idling along Illinois Avenue so I got to suck in plenty of diesel exhaust. Worst of all the leg pain was bad. I have narrowed the pain down a bit though. This is what I know:
- The pain runs from the left knee down the outside of the leg.
- The pain is not bad until I’ve been running for a little over a mile.
- Performing non-running activities before running seems to ward off the pain during running for a bit longer.
- Walking up or down stairs is excruciatingly painful about 30 minutes after a run. My left leg from the knee down feels “stiff” and will hardly bend without shooting pain. In particular, going down the stairs at the CalTrain 22nd Street Station is unpleasant and I will likely someday soon tumble down the stairs to my demise.
- Sometimes the stiffness in the knee causes me enough pain that it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
- Continuing to run “through” the pain does not cause the pain to subside.
- I am too stubborn to stop running long enough to let it heal properly.
- Cross-training (i.e. cycling) is boring.
Okay, those last two are not necessarily true. I suspect it is the dreaded runner’s knee again in which case I really should rest. Therefore I now need to decide if I should sacrifice the race at the end of this month in order to salvage the races in July. I haven’t paid for the race in June but, I would really like to do it. I could use the excuse that we have a wedding to attend later that same day and that I was really cutting it close trying to do both.
Anyway, I’m going to try and see my doctor and get a recommendation. In the meantime, I won’t be running I suppose and thus not writing either. So until my knee is magically restored to its once non-rickety self, so long.