For unknown reasons, my knee has been ailing me. Now that I am within reach of my marathon (12 weeks or so), I am a little nervous about backing off. On the flip side, I know that if I don’t back off, I could be forced to bail on the whole thing. I don’t want that.
On Thursday night, after the homework meltdown, I eventually made it to the gym. I swear that I wrote the other half to the story but it is nowhere to be found. Anyway, I was on the treadmill for less than a minute and felt a jarring pain along the front of my kneecap. This was, in all honesty, no surprise; I’ve been hobbling down the stairs all week. I retreated to the LifeCycle and pedaled until I’d covered twice the scheduled run-miles. The following night, I swam laps in the pool. 1,500 yards (or meters), I’m not sure which but I did it.
In the back of my mind, I figured I’d let rest my knee so I could do my long run. This morning, however, the knee did not feel any better and I was certain that another day would not make much difference. So I decided to do a bit of backyard spinning instead. Once again, I would cycle for double the run-miles.
I guess you could say that it’s been a while since I’ve used my trainer: since March I believe.
It took me some time to get prepared:
- Set up the bike on the trainer on the backyard porch
- Pump up the tires
- Get water for about 2 hours of cycling
- Set up the iPhone and earphones for entertainment
- Nutrition: 1 packet of GU
- Gather my Garmin & HR strap (cadence sensor attached to bike)
- What else?
It seemed like the list was endless. Finally, I was ready to climb aboard and pedal.