I Can't Deny It Any Longer...

The first step of recovery is admitting you have a problem...

My name is Brian, I am A RUNNER and I have a knee injury.

This week I saw my second doctor who confirmed no structural damage to my right knee but a case of patella tendonitis (I hate that word).  Instead of listening to the doctors and my body, I kept looking for away to get back to the roads.  After all I'm a runner that is what I do.

But today, with the hope that a knee strap would help me, I could not run more then a quarter mile before the pain was back.  I could have pressed thru it, but with the pain I begun to alter my stride.  It's time to listen up.

I'm shutting it down for July.  This is a very hard thing for me to do.  I'm in the best shape of my life, my running was at a new level.  Only problem, I broke my own golden rule...do not over train, do not over do the miles, the hills or the speed work.  I monitor my miles pretty close and try to never exceed a 10% jump in mileage.  What got me this time...the hills.  In the course of two and a half weeks I ran 80+ miles of hills. During the first weekend I ran 22 miles over some monster hills.

My knee began to get a little sore after the second 11 miler, but I pressed on.

The next week I ran hills as part of my normal workout, then ran a half marathon (+7 = 20 miler) over a hilly race course.  Another camping trip led to another hilly run... 

The worst part, I knew I was opening myself up to an injury, yet could not see the forest for the trees were in the way.  I got sucked in...while banging away at the hills my legs got so strong.  Hills were no longer a monster challenge...and I wanted more.

So here I go...30 days of elliptical training. How will this effect marathon training?  Were going to find out...

Stayed turned!