"Older, Slower, Lower"

Hidekichi "Golden Bolt" Miyazaki, 103

Alternating ice and heat packs twice a day, wearing the knee brace, taking ibuprofen and applying a healing ointment, a few stretches for flexibility, and an easy walk— the past couple of days I’ve been good to my knee, and my knee’s getting better for me. I’ll take it easy today, too, which is not my habit. What I used to do in this situation was as soon as I got to feeling a little bit better I’d push myself too soon. Not good. Learned my lesson. Knock on wood.

During this recovery, I’ve begun researching how to train for sprints, factoring in age. There’s a site called masterstrack.com I’ve begun reading that's subtitled “Older, Slower, Lower: …for adult age-group track and field”. I'm seeing recommendations for, first, strength training to build quads and hamstrings, followed by something called plyometric exercises to build speed and power. 

There also seems to be a seasonal order to train during the winter, adding more fast-twitch running as competition nears in the warmer months. 

It sounds like the challenge is balancing all this work with my body’s capacity so that I don’t overload and get hurt. In the meantime, I’ll try to recover from my knee injury and get back slowly into a good training regime. My aim is to match Golden Bolt's form myself, as a centenarian. 

Onward and Amen!

Ouch Again

If I get this right—what Matt has just patiently explained—a new, and my latest, knee problem comes from tears in a tendon that passes up from the calf muscles to the back of one of my knee bones. He can see the swelling.

This is something different, and more painful, than the knee problem I was experiencing previously. With that one, the pain seemed to be coming down to the knee from the hamstring muscles above.

My theory is that this first problem contributed to an imbalance between the muscle groups operating the knee from above and from below. 

The latest issue arose just last weekend as I was crouching and bending my knee deeply to take a picture. As I was rising out of the crouch—straightening my leg—I relied with unaccustomed force on the lower tendons connecting knee to calf. 

I reason that the tendons coming down from the hamstrings, when healthy, can help provide a complementary force, but they were weakened and could not give adequate support. The sudden strain on the lower tendons resulted in micro-tears, inflammation, soreness and swelling--sort of a compensatory injury.

So now Matt recommends I treat this latest issue with the standard RICE, an acronym whose signifiers I can never quite remember—rest, elevation, cold, something. I’m also taking ibuprofen and applying some arnica ointments.

Matt gave me his old knee brace and prescribed, in addition to RICE, wearing it on my daily now non-strenuous walk. He also recommended:

• maintaining hamstring flexibility with stiff-legged dead lifts
• rowing/cycling as pain allows
• hot/cold compresses 2X a day
• topical ointment

It seems that being in training involves both pushing your body, and managing the often resulting pain.

Onward. But dang.

Recovery

Lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning this past week I’ve tried visualizing exactly how I might have injured my usually sturdy left knee, and I think I got it figured out. About three weeks ago I was adding short runs into the Power Walk, and I hyperextended going downhill on 9th Avenue; it’s not hard to re-imagine the feeling of that first tweak, and then I tried to ignore it for too long. 

Now that I know how it likely happened I've got to be careful not to do it again. 

The past two weeks of abbreviated activity, needing to take big doses of Ibuprofen on the worst days, and the canceling of my yoga class have had me feeling kind of low. But it's reinforced my determination to take it easy, paying attention to every twinge and whinge of my weakened knee. A week ago it told me not to go up the steepest part of the Pine Street hill, and I obeyed. I similarly curtailed another attempted Power Walk this past Monday, obeying Knee’s complaints. 

To keep from going nuts, in addition to beach walks and daily warm-ups I’ve been doing Workout Light at the gym every couple of days, letting my right knee bear most of the weight while I pedal or press. There have been ups and downs, but slowly Lefty has come around. A strenuous workout yesterday included leg presses and some hard rowing, and it felt good. I just finished the first full Power Walk in two weeks—full tilt, but no running, and being especially careful on the downhill. I’ve been listening to Lefty, and today he’s offering no complaints. 

That’s a big hoorah. And to keep it that way, I promise to continue paying attention. I don't want to go through another three plus weeks like this!

Onward.