1/2 Marathon Aspirations Dashed

After completing the Detroit Turkey Trot 10k race on Thanksgiving Day I decided my next step in running would be to complete a 1/2 marathon.  I planned to run in the Free Press Marathon held in October.

I had been preparing for the race, lengthening my runs when I decided one fateful day in April to run while pushing my 1 year old son in a stroller.  The problem that I discovered shortly into the run was that his stroller constantly veers to the left.  This meant that every few paces I was forced to correct its direction.  Doing so was putting an enormous strain on my right knee and when it was done, my knee was in some serious pain.  The day after, the same thing.  And the next day, and the next day.  Eventually, the pain went away and I decided to go out for a run again. 

What I found was that I could run and be fine that day, but the next day is when I would feel the pain.  It would last for a day and then go away.  This would be okay, I thought, because I could still run every other day, taking a day off while my knee hurt to return to running the next day.  I continued this way throughout May and into part of June and the knee never improved.  So I figured I would rest it through June and July and try again in August.  This would still give me two months to train and prepare for the race in October.

Well, today was my first run since June.  I decided to take it easy by starting off with a 3 mile jog with some speed intervals thrown in every few minutes.  The run started well, but before the half-way point I could feel some tightness and pain in my knee.  Even now as I type, I can feel it.  Needless the say, the rest did it no good and it looks like my plan for the 1/2 marathon is done for.  Beyond that, I don’t know if I’ll be able to participate in this year’s Turkey Trot.

It looks like I’ll have to visit a doctor to see what’s wrong with it and how to fix it.  That’ll have to wait until I get a job and medical insurance though.  Anyway, I’m a little bummed and wanted to take a few minutes to blog about it.