I had a nice post ready for today about what I expect to do over the next 10 weeks in preparation for Ironman China. With the race coming up quickly, this is the time to start ramping up my training and I am excited, rested and ready to do so. Only one minor problem, the pain in my left knee that started out as a slight twinge has worsened. It now hurts almost all of the time and last night I had trouble sleeping. I've only run once in the past 4 weeks and now even cycling is out of the question.
Yesterday I went to a knee specialist. His office was filled with pictures of him with NBA players and the waiting room was filled with his books on healthy knees. He came in, asked a few questions and then started in on the problems of running and knees. Being someone who sees injured knees for a living, his general attitude is age + running = injured knees. Swimming is of course no problem and he's a fan of cycling. But for a mature athlete, he has pretty much nothing positive to say about running. He also said that by the time one turns 50, the body will make the decision for you whether or not you can participate in certain sports. For most people that means no running. It's hard to argue with a guy whose life is putting athlete's knees back together especially while I'm sitting in his office with a throbbing knee.
He prescribed an MRI which I am getting on Tuesday. Even as recently as earlier this week I was confident that the pain was just about to go away and I had been working on my travel plans to China. Now I'm not so sure and in fact it's hard for me to believe that it will get better in time for me to do the race. And if the pain does go away do I have the confidence to immediately start ramping up with long rides and runs? To say that this is depressing is quite an understatement. The only silver lining is that over the past few weeks I've taken out my frustration about curtailing running/riding by having particularly long and hard swim workouts. Consequently I'm swimming as well today as I've ever swam in my life. This is positioning me well for our master's swim club annual one hour swim competition. But that is small potatoes compared to Ironman China.
I'm not ready to give up on doing Ironman China and have decided to reserve judgment until after the MRI. But even as I sit here writing this I'm in quite a bit of discomfort making the thought of Ironman training seem rather remote. If you've successfully dealt with knee injuries and have any suggestions or in fact any other thoughts of wisdom or comfort, please email me at my hotmail address which is Pacifico555. Thanks.