Personal Worst

I ran my college alumni cross country race yesterday, and established a personal worst time for 5K - 25:51.

I was a little surprised by that, as I didn't expect to run so slowly.  I thought my overall fitness was decent (from cycling), and I actually ran a couple of times a week in September.  My mile splits certainly were not very even - 7:31/8:45/8:32. 

I felt OK, just not very fit, but my left knee was a bit sore after the race, and remains a bit sore as I type this the following day.  Not swollen, though, so I guess that is good.

I am going to carry on with trying to do 3 runs a week, and will probably try another 5K in the next month or so.

Shouldn't be hard to beat yesterday's time :-)

recent bike rides

After a long absence...

I've started to do a little running again.  I signed up to run my college alumni cross country race later this month (5 km), so I am trying to get in some semblance of running shape by September 29.

I have been mostly cycling over the last year.  I've been riding a reasonable amount, so my aerobic condition isn't too bad, but running is a different thing than riding a bike, so I know that it will only go so far.

I ran 3 times last week (only 2.6 to 3.2 miles at a time), so I am going to aim for 3 runs a week for now.

I will try to post a bit more frequently on how this latest attempt to ramp up my running goes!

Cyclocross and another try at running

As I wrote in my last post, I decided my knee needed a break from running, so I haven't run at all since 9/8/11.

I have tried cyclocross racing, and have had fun doing it, although it's been pretty humbling, since I have been at the tail end of the race in all 4 races I have done.  Bike racing is pretty different than running, in that everyone out there is pretty serious.  In truth, my fitness is not very high, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised to be bringing up the rear.  In today's race at Shedd Park in Lowell, I was DFL, although I guess I can say I beat the 7 DNFs.

But I do miss running.  The knee feels OK now, so I think I'm going to again give it a go and see what happens.  Indeed, I entered a Thanksgiving Day race today,  the Fisher Cats 5K in Manchester, NH.   It will no doubt be a bit of a struggle on zero miles of training, but maybe the cycling will help.  I'll post a post-mortum after the race.

MRI result

I finally got a call about my MRI result yesterday (it was 16 days after it was done).  The news wasn't that good, if about what I expected.

It showed that the grafts on my patella and trochlea are intact, but there was a significant amount of edema under the patellar graft.  One would hope not to see that 4 years out from the surgery, since it suggests that the quality of the cartilage in the graft isn't that good.

 I didn't speak to the surgeon himself, but rather his assistant.  She told me they didn't think I should be doing high impact activities, like running.

The plan is to repeat the MRI in 6 months, and if it looks similar, to consider taking a look arthroscopically to see if the graft is soft.  But I'm not really sure what could be done about that - I didn't think to ask.

So, the return to running is on hold.  Maybe permanently.  However, I think I will continue to update the blog with my progress on other activities.  I will concentrate on cycling, and I am now planning to make a serious attempt to improve my cross country skate skiing over this coming winter.

MRI postponed

I was supposed to have my knee MRI last week, but I was postponed, a bit to my surprise.

The week before, we were on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, which was wonderful.  We did a Backroads family multi-sport trip, with cycling, hiking and a little rafting.  My knee actually felt OK, but I would add the qualifier that it wasn't all that rigorous, being a family trip.

 Anyway, on the way home, I tweaked my back lifting luggage.  As a consequence, I was taking some ibuprofen.  The MRI needs to be done with intravenous contrast to get a good look at the cartilage.  Very rarely, intravenous contrast can cause serious kidney problems, although this happens almost exclusively in people who already have serious kidney disease.  Medications like ibuprofen can in theory cause kidney dysfunction, although probably not in reasonably healthy people (I think I am in that category).  At the MRI, I had to fill out a fairly long questionnaire, which includes questions about recent ibuprofen use.  Since I had taken some that morning, they cancelled me.  Kind of ridiculous in my opinion.  Fortunately, it's not exactly urgent that I get the scan, and the facility was right on my way to work, so it wasn't as annoying as it could have been.

The knee feels quite a bit better than it did when I first made the doctor's appointment that led to the MRI, but I will still go ahead with the scan this coming week, since I would like to know what's going on in there.  If it looks good, then I think I will feel I can try to up my mileage & see how it goes.  I only ran 23 miles (but cycled 272).

Update - MRI scheduled

I'm overdue for an update.

I saw my orthopedist in mid July, since I was worried about the knee pain I have been having.

He told me he thought it could be the patch over the cartilage graft having come loose & causing trouble.  Or deterioration of the graft (which would obviously be a bad thing).  So, I'm scheduled for an MRI the week after next; it was delayed because of my vacation plans.

While vacationing in northern Michigan, I was pretty active, and the knee didn't feel too bad, so maybe things aren't too bad after all.  But I am interested to know what the MRI will show.

It's kind of a rainy Sunday morning, not very good for riding the bike, so will probably head out for a short run in a bit.