Taper Drama

My little knee problem that I casually mentioned in my last blog entry might have been a little more serious that I was letting on. Actually it had me quite worried last week. The pain was coming from the inside of the knee on top of the knee cap. Actually if you look at the picture below it was right where the Vastus Medialis connects into the knee cap. It was a burning sensation that got really screamed at me anytime I tried to do anything near the top of end of my speed range.



After the failed 800's on Tuesday, I was able to do two runs of 9 & 6 on Wednesday, but there was a lot of discomfort on both runs, especially in the first few miles of each one. Then on Thrusday, things started to improve, so rather stupidly, I tried to do the 800's again. Within a tenth of a mile, the burning sensation came back and I had to call it quits. Since I was still about 3 miles from home at that point, I had to try and jog/limp home, which really caused some bad pain in upper quad area.

I iced the heck out of it all night and by Friday morning, it seemed to be doing better. The run turned out to be the best I've had all week as far as comfort was concerned and I was able to run 12 miles with a few near marathon pace without any discomfort. That afternoon I visited a physical therapist who confirmed nothing structural was wrong and then proceeded to stretch and rub and poke at it until I couldn't feel anything.

That all set me up for Sunday's final longish run of 15 miles. I wanted to do the first half of the run at a nice steady pace and then slowly move into marathon pace for the second half. I wasn't sure if the knee would hold up when the pace increased, but I figured it's best to find this stuff out now, 2 weeks before marathon day than a few days before. The run went about as good as could be expected with the first half clocking in at a 6:19 pace and the second half coming in at 5:51 pace. The legs felt great throughout and the knee never really gave me any trouble. There were a few times where I felt like if the pace got any faster I might have some problems, but things felt pretty stable at marathon pace, which I'm happy with.

I don't know if it's worth the risk to try and do anything faster than marathon pace between now and the marathon. On the one hand, I don't know how comfortable I am not knowing what the "breaking point" is for when the pain comes back. The downside is that once the pain does come back, it's comes back hard and it doesn't subside right away, meaning it could last for miles. I'm considering trying to some graduated strides tomorrow just to test it out with some short controlled speed, but even that kind of scares me. I'm going back to the physical therapist on Wednesday, so I'd like to be able to say if I'm still having trouble or not though. I guess I'll make that decision tomorrow. This is how last week went down:

Mon: 10 Miles Easy
Tues: 4 Miles (aborted 800's because of knee)
WedAM: 9 Miles @ 6:19 Pace
WedPM: 6 Miles Easy
Thurs: 7 Miles (Aborted 800's again because of knee)
FriAM: 12 Miles @ 6:11 Pace
FriPM: 5 Miles Easy
Sat: 6 Miles @ 7:20 Pace
Sun: 15 Miles @ 6:06 Pace W/ 7.5 @ 5:51

Total: 74 Miles