Injured Knee Blues...

It's now just six days until Boston and it's all up in the air.

Three weeks ago I won a local duathlon - just a decent tempo workout for me. The next day I did downhill repeats and the day after that was my final fast finish long run. The long run went great, but I was limping afterwards with stiffness in my left knee. I figured it was just DOMS and figured the same when I was still limping the next day. Long story short is I didn't stop limping and the pain in my knee got worse. All signs pointed to chondromalcia.

Since then I've been sidelined to jogging slowly for a couple miles at a time and biking. Neither is very satisfactory. The quads have been regaining strength with rehab exercises and stretching, but I still feel pain and stiffness in my hip and the inner part of my knee. I tried to test it out with a "normal easy" 7:00 pace run on Sunday but had to stop after just three miles.

On the bright side this has given me the opportunity to reevaluate my running form and training program to this point. Hopefully this will make me a better runner in the long term.

Right now there's only a slim chance that I'll be ready to go and try for a 2:50 at Boston. I'm still determined to participate, after all the hotel and flight is already booked, but I may have to come up with some creative ideas to make it a slow "fun run" that wont aggravate the injury. Right now ideas range from doing it barefoot (or maybe with socks) to trying to come in last place, to eating as much food along the way as I can! Suggestions appreciated...