Why does resting suck so bad?

Not sure when I hurt my left knee, but it hurts like hell!

Thursday I went to Boot Camp and part of the workout was doing duck walks on the track.  I am pretty sure this was the cause of my knee injury.  Not a bad exercise for someone who is twenty one years old, but this old guy is never doing them again.

I got up the next day and felt fine.  I met up with a group of runners for an inside track workout.  Six times around the track equals a mile and we were doing lap repeats with one lap rest.  After a half mile warm up we started the repeats.  I was running with a friend of mine (Michael).  We ran 1:02 - 1:04 each lap (6:12-6:24 mile pace).  We did 10 repeats and then ran a half mile cool down.

I was feeling great after the track workout, but had to drive two hours for a meeting that morning.  When I was driving back, I felt some pain on the outside of my left knee.  It was actually sore to the touch.  I got home and was really hurting.  I took some Advil and started icing my knee.  I did this for several hours.

I was going to get up in the morning and run my long run with the Charleston Running Club, but my knee was hurting all night.  I had to stand most of the day and by Saturday night I was really in pain.  I took more Advil and iced my knee some more.

My knee was feeling a little better on Sunday.  My son wanted to go to the track so we went out and ran one mile.  We played football and soccer while we were there as well (that could be an entire blog post).  Later, I got in the hot tub for a while and tried to stretch out my leg.  It started to feel a lot better.

I was still sore on Monday so I skipped Boot Camp and my afternoon six mile run.  All of this "rest" was making me a very grumpy guy.  I was not feeling good about missing all of these workouts.  I was also completely stressed about my future (who am I if I am not a former fat guy that runs?).

By Monday night my knee was feeling much better.  Funny how rest can do that...

I went to Boot Camp on Tuesday morning, but was not too happy to find out that we were going to be doing our Physical Fitness Test (PFT).  I warmed up and did the push up and crunches.  I went to the track and decided I would take it easy on the one mile run.  I ran it in 7:20 (about one minute slower than my last test).  I was a little bummed about it, but I figure I can crush it at the end of this Boot Camp session.  Better than wrecking my knee for a one mile run.

That afternoon I went for a five mile run.  I tried to keep a steady pace and just have fun while taking it easy on my knee (9:09, 8:59, 9:19, 9:00, 9:18). My knee felt a little tight, but there was no pain.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a six mile run (9:13, 8:52, 8:58, 8:56, 8:35, 9:10).  This was as close to a tempo run as I was going to do this week.  My knee felt fine and I felt awesome after the run.

I am going to listen to my body and take it easy for the rest of the week.  Skinny guys will never understand how hard it is for fat guys (or former fat guys) to take a day off.  Its very hard to differentiate excuses from a real need to rest.  You see how far you have come and you know what it took to get to that point...

2 comments:

  1. Ugh, those duck walks are brutal!! I know it's so hard to take a rest day but our bodies need them so badly to stay healthy and un-injured. I'm glad it's feeling better.

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  2. Thanks! Yeah, no way am I doing them again. I went for ten miles last night and felt great!

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