Having been down this road
before, I’m a little shy in putting this out there.
After all, I’ve not run in a
marathon or a half marathon since July 2014. In those near-three years, my
training has been interrupted by injury. The worst being a running-stopping
knee crusher around Halloween 2015, just two weeks before the Brooklyn Marathon.
Then the following “fall”, on the Thursday before the Bay Ridge Half Marathon,
I literally smushed a faceplant, suffering minor concussion symptoms and a bloodied
lip and face cuts.
Sweet, it hasn’t been.
Now, though, as I ready myself
to start training for The County Marathon in Eastern Ontario in October, I want
to say a word about knees.
Time will tell, and it could be
these 40-plus years of running on these knees have taken their toll. That my
next injury is just around the corner. Better, if I were smart enough to admit
it to myself, that I should be happy to just jog three-, four-, five-, and at
the outside, six-milers and be done with that.
Thing is the knees. They’ve
never felt stronger. That is since the knee crusher in 2015, I’ve been strict
in doing these exercises: lunges, squats and leg raises. We’re talking
compression socks and patella bands to manage the shock of the street-pounding.
This greater core strength actually has me sitting back in my stride a bit
more, allowing my more muscled self (knees, quads and butt) to better absorb
the shock and literally take the pressure off the knee.
It can be done. Meaning, you can
train for a big one, and get stronger, rather than weaker as you put on the
miles. Given my experience with sickness and health, the body is amazing. The
older you get, you just have to treat it with a bit more respect.
That’s the theory. Time to put
it in practice.
Next: Running for Your Life: Beware the “Confidence” Man
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