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So.. A week has gone by with very little activity. Not a great start, but on the other hand recognising the problem and avoiding exacerbating it now should be beneficial. I chose to forgo any running during the week, and even skipped my usual Tuesday run home. Today I went out for my first run since last weekend’s knee pain (no doubting commitment as it was bucketing it down). The good news is that my knee was fine and I handled a short 5 miler at 9m20 pace without any problems.

I had hoped to pick up a bit of biking and swimming this week instead – but unfortunately failed to do so. Basically tiredness. This usually happens – if I get slowly into a routine I’ll be fine as it becomes normal, it’s just starting the routine that’s the trick. I did have a fairly long swimming session on Friday, but didn’t do as well as the previous week.

This week I need to try to get at last 2 swimming sessions in and to put in another couple of 5 or 6 mile running sessions. Let’s see what happens.

Typically as soon as I start I hit a snag. Last Tuesday on my usual commute home run I felt a twinge in my knee around the 4 mile mark. A slight slackening of pace and the problem went away. In the end I finished relatively quickly for me (sub 9 minute miles, in the dark, with a backpack, across muddy fields).

Yesterday on my long run the knee problem came back – I was lucky to happen across the route of a cross country 10K race as this gave me an opportunity to slow up and spectate. So, 9 miles done, but at least the last 3 were no fun.

This happens around this time every year. It may be a combination of mileage on my shoes (always around the 400 mile mark), or the weather (as it turns colder and wetter). But this time I wonder if it’s the rowing I’ve being trying in the gym. My quads still ache today whereas normally I don’t feel a run (especially a sub 10 mile run) the next day. I suspect tiredness from the row on Friday evening meant I wasn’t keeping good form on Sunday morning.

I’m going to lay off the running for at least a week. This is a shame as I quite enjoy my Tuesday cross country runs home from work. Hopefully this will mean I can concentrate more on my swimming, but I’m giving away ‘free’ mileage (the run home is easy to commit to) in exchange for dragging myself to the gym. I would like to bike to/from work – but at this time of year on narrow dark lanes I think it’s suicidal.

So the trick of the next couple of weeks will be keeping up at the gym.. and possibly laying off the Concept II.