I'm making serious progress with the knee injury (although pictures from the race I was supposed to do today have me totally depressed.)
What I'm finding is that following the initial injury, my left leg has become significantly weaker than the right. I wouldn't have noticed except running in my VFFs I could HEAR that one foot was landing louder than the other.
It didn't feel like I was limping or imbalanced, but I started intentionally using my left leg more until it evened out. I also found that shortening my stride and slowing down a bit kept my knee from twinging or having sharp pain. When I ran yesterday, I could really feel that i was engaging my left leg more and it was more tired than the right by the time I was done running, but no knee pain. Did the same thing again today.
At about mile two, I was getting knee pain so I again focused on being strong with my left leg and keeping my stride really short (no doubt I looked like I was running with a stick up my backside, LOL.) Anyway, it worked, knee stopped hurting and I was able to finish a 10 mile run with no pain.
So, now to focus on strength training to build the left leg back up and continue running. Still bummed about missing the amazing adventure race, but I will get over it.
What I'm finding is that following the initial injury, my left leg has become significantly weaker than the right. I wouldn't have noticed except running in my VFFs I could HEAR that one foot was landing louder than the other.
It didn't feel like I was limping or imbalanced, but I started intentionally using my left leg more until it evened out. I also found that shortening my stride and slowing down a bit kept my knee from twinging or having sharp pain. When I ran yesterday, I could really feel that i was engaging my left leg more and it was more tired than the right by the time I was done running, but no knee pain. Did the same thing again today.
At about mile two, I was getting knee pain so I again focused on being strong with my left leg and keeping my stride really short (no doubt I looked like I was running with a stick up my backside, LOL.) Anyway, it worked, knee stopped hurting and I was able to finish a 10 mile run with no pain.
So, now to focus on strength training to build the left leg back up and continue running. Still bummed about missing the amazing adventure race, but I will get over it.