A Story of a Bruised Bone and Tendon

February 8th, I ran 17 plus miles and 3,800 feet of vert around Mount Falcon in a solid 2 hours 45 minutes.  99% of the trail was covered in nasty snow and ice.  Not once did I come close to falling.

February 9th, 1/2 mile away from my house, I slipped on what looked like grainy snow and drove my right knee into what ended up being a solid sheet of ice.  I continued on for another 10 plus miles in temps that hovered around the teens.  My knee hurt but didn't think much of it.

In the proceeding days I caught a nice cold from my daughter and put in a few flat miles around town.  Knee was sore, but nothing worrisome.  By the end of the following weekend, I had accumulated 27 miles, almost 6,000 feet of vert and one swollen knee.

Over the next 2 weeks I ran twice for a total of 8.5 miles.  The runs didn't hurt my knee.  Yet I found my knee hurting at random times.  Sometimes it hurt like a mother f...er!  Usually by the end of the night.

Frustration took over.  

Since my son was born, I've spent so much time building what I felt was a very strong running base.  Paying attention to each of my runs and investing much time in weightlifting.  Putting myself into position to run the Salida Marthon strong.  Waiting for that light switch to turn on for me to put my training into another level for this summer and fall races.

Prior to the fall, I felt like I was much stronger this year then I was at this point last year.  I'm pretty confident in saying I was stronger this year then I was entering last years SJS50.  That switch...I was just about to turn it on as a test for a few weeks leading into Salida.

Then the fall.  The frustration stemming from a sudden stop in my training.  An injury caused from a damn fall.

My sister in law works at CU Sports Medicine.  Having that connection puts me quick contact with some established doctors that know a few things about running.

For roughly 30 minutes, the doc asked me a lot of questions, took a few x-rays and twisted/pulled/pushed my right knee every which way.

It was great hearing that my knee was extremely strong.  The fall 3 weeks back resulted in a bone bruise and a patellar tendon bruise.  Had I come in right away, the suggested path to recovery would have been taking it easy for a few week running easy flat miles.  Avoid the trails as the act of running up or down replicates my fall too much and puts unneeded stress to tendon.  And avoid kneeling since the tendon can't yet handle the body weight!

By kneeling, I put myself further into the injury hole.  I kneel to change my son's diaper daily.  I also painted my sons room in the past week and kneeling to paint baseboards, lower portions of the walls thrashed me. In hindsight, it makes complete sense why my knee hurt so bad at the end of the day.  At the time, I just assumed my knee was beat from running.    

The key now is getting the tendon to calm down, which it already has after a few days since my doctors visit. A few more weeks of low key running, no kneeling, ice and Advil should do the trick.  I've lost a little fitness, but what sucks is loosing that sharpness of running one can only obtain by training consistently.  Loosing out on this means my chances of running the Salida Marathon strong the whole time is non existent.  So I unfortunately won't even bother with the event.

I will however be thumping the friendly trails of Mt Falcon and Mt Morrison by months end and to me that's way more important.