Slowly but Surely, I Hope

I injured my right knee last May as I trained for my first 10K race. Come the day of the race, my right knee was still injured. Although I was lucky to finish the race, I do not want to experience the same kind of physical pain—not to mention the anxiety of the moment—in my future races.

As I prepare for the Adidas KOTR run on the 24th, I was able to evaluate my training habits  in light of what happened last May and tried to correct the training don’ts that I employed. Looking back, my first 10k run taught me that there are things one cannot rush—and that includes preparing for a race. It is just that I sometimes get too excited in trying out something new that I overlook constraints that matter.

By Stuff No One Told Me
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Let me share with you some techniques that I have learned (the hard way!) from my previous race experience. It has been over a month of training, and so far the following methods are delivering results—no signs of my previous right knee condition with prolonged jogging (i.e. 50 minutes of non-stop running, the longest so far).

1. Long Hiatus – I had to refrain from running/jogging for over three months to give my right knee sufficient time to recuperate.

2. Warm Up – My pre-injury warm up routine includes the five/ten-minute walk and not-over-two-minutes stretching exercises, if it happens (I skip doing stretches whenever I wake up a few minutes late). After the injury, a serious warm up routine is now obligatory. I also adjust the warm up routine depending on the target mileage/jogging time on schedule.

3. Light and Slow – There is a need to resist the tendency to speed up when the adrenalin rush kicks in (it is usually at the start of the jog for me). Sometimes I do not realize how fast/slow I am going, especially when I am jogging  alone. After the injury, I have learned to pay attention to my body and to adjust my movements accordingly.  This technique also best applies to uphill routes.

4. Stick to Schedule – When I started to train for the KOTR run, I followed the five-minute-run-on-week-one routine—pattered after Sir Gene’s Recovery Attempts from ITBS—that has a weekly five-minute progression for the succeeding weeks of training. Although I had to modify my weekly progression after a month, the incremental change is based on how my body is catching up; what is important is that the weekly increase is not  too drastic. The difficult part comes at the end of the running session, because one might feel that the body could still handle a few more rounds/minutes but one has to stop nevertheless. The other difficult part is foregoing other running opportunities scheduled before the race.

5. Cool Down – The temptation to change clothes, prop the legs up, eat, and bathe is so strong after a long run. This is why before the injury, cool down meant walking for not more than five minutes before heading straight home. Only recently have I incorporated proper cool down into my routine, which includes a ten-minute walk and stretching exercises. This probably explains why I no longer feel dizzy and sore after a run.

6. Change of Route – There are two uphill routes in our neighborhood. When I trained for my first 10K run, I always took the one that has a steeper and longer uphill route for two reasons: it is a longer route and I feel safer—home owners wake up early in that side of the neighborhood. This route, being the more challenging one,  must be avoided without due preparation. During the first five weeks of my (KOTR) training, I managed to avoid the longer route. It was only last week when I was forced to take the longer route—thanks to the dog that greeted me on my usual route as I was warming up. The next time I take the longer route, I just have to make sure that my steps are light and slow.

7. Gait Adjustment – I still do the impromptu remedy that I discovered during the Nature Valley run. This technique eliminates the need for new shoes and knee band.