shred of hope

[1/23/06 Monday]
Rest Day

My knee feels better with an ace bandage on it. I am not limping at all today. This gives me a shred of hope.

[1/22/06 Sunday]
Swim - 3000yd, 58 min - Main set as 4 x 200, did some drills with hand paddles
Lower body weights, abs

I did the entire swim with a pull buoy to avoid any stress on my knee. Even swimming with a normal kick irritates it now. It is frustrating because for the past two months I have been taking it very easy, and still my knee is not recovered. This makes me cranky.

I attempted to do lower body weights without affecting my knee today. That was kind of challenging. I basically just did isolation exercises for everything except my quads and hamstrings. I walked one lap around the track bringing my knees up as high as possible on each step. That was great for my hip flexors which were feeling the burn by the end.

[1/21/06 Saturday]
Bike - 75 minutes - easy aerobic (indoor, spin class)
Run - 2.8 miles, 25 min - 2 x 1 miles @ 8:37, 8:47 with recovery
Weights (shoulders, arms), abs

This felt like the closest thing to a real workout I have done in a long time. 1:45 of good old biking and running, then weights to top it off and completely tire me out. It was a lot of fun. The only problem was that I started feeling my runner's knee about 10 minutes into the bike. Maybe I should have stopped right away when I felt it, but I kept going and just did high cadence spinning instead of the hills. I really wanted to run, so I did, but it got worse the more I did. As I was running, I was wondering how many weeks of no running would have to follow this workout. It is really hard to not run when all I want to do is run. I am jealous of people who can. Going only 2 miles at a time feels like nothing. After I am healed, I will be grateful for every normal run I can go on.