9 Months to Tri

Yesterday kind of fell apart and it was obvious I was going to miss most of work. So I took a personal day. Finished up my DMV paperwork and took care of some odd paperwork since I had time. Then, off to the doctor to talk about my knee.

His preliminary diagnosis, without the use of MRI or any other costly medical scanning, is that I’ve got some tendinitis.  Which, of course, is what Mike told me last weekend.  So, what is tendinitis?  First, its important to know that structurally, my knee is sound.  I’m not going to lose it or anything horrible. Tendinitis is apparently an inflammation of the tendon itself, often from overuse.  Since I’m using my knees in a much more aggressive way than before, apparently my left knee has become inflamed, and a small bump in my tendon is now slipping back and forth over the edge of my knee cap, or another bone, causing the loud ‘popping’ sound that occurs when I take full steps.  The more I use it, the more inflamed it becomes.  Most days I just hear it. After continuous use, I can start to feel it. Sometimes, it actually starts to cause discomfort. So, under normal daily use, this isn’t much of a problem, but after a run, it can get pretty bad, and after running several days in a row, it can get even worse.  Every time I stop working out, the swelling goes down.

The next question is of course, how will this affect my training?  Well, since I’m working out almost daily much of the time, my knee never really has a chance to recover. It recovers somewhat each night, but not fully, so I start each day off more inflamed than I started the previous day, and it get progressively worse.  This is why my knee feels worse at the end of the week than at the start, since taking Sunday off to recover seems to allow my knee to rest.  If I keep on going without fixing this, my doctor says I could very conceivably get to a point where I’m in too much pain and will HAVE to stop training.  What we need to do is, first, stop putting stress on the tendon, and second, bring the inflammation down so that the tendon has a chance to heal completely.

The treatment he’s recommended is to take 3 anti-inflamatories 3 times a day. Advil, Tylenol, etc.  The second part is that for a week, I shouldn’t do anything to overwork the knee tendons.  Even though the Bike, Eliptical Trainer and Stair Mill don’t hurt the
knee, I’m supposed to stay away from them since they put stress on the
tendons in question.  Obviously I have to walk, and I should warm up before lifting, but I’ll stay off of the Arc Trainer and the Treadmill completely.  For cardio days, I can hit the pool.  Since there’s no weight on the knee, there’s no problem in the water.  If next week goes well, I’ll be at the pool at least twice next week. 

I also met with Jamie last night, but I’ll have to fill you in later on that.

As for today, I woke up with a pounding headache and achy muscles.  My head was totally congested.  Wow.  Called in sick, and I’m pretty much just hanging in there.  Gotta wonder if I didn’t catch something from the doctor’s office, or if I just collapsed from working too many hours.  Or both.

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