I have to say that the knee has been feeling great since I saw the orthopedic surgeon last week. That being said, I was taking it easy for a few days as per doctors orders. The early part of this week was spent doing what appears to have become my normal marathon training routine ... physical therapy and the elliptical. I went to physical therapy and got the usual treatment ... ultrasound on the IT Band, a crushing "massage" to try to break up any of the fibrous tissue that may have formed from being inflamed and stretching of the hips / legs. Although I haven't seen to many clinical result yet (since I was still having pain with running), I am starting to see a huge increase in my flexibility and strength. When I first started doing physical therapy I was barely able to do 20 "clam shells" and now I have gone through three different strengths of resistance bands and can still do 2 sets of 25. In addition, the "bridge" exercise which used to be the hardest of them all, is now a piece of cake. Although they haven't come through for me quite yet, I am hoping that two more weeks of solid physical therapy will pay off come April 18th.
In addition to physical therapy, I have also been trying to keep with my ultimate plan of "elliptical-ing" my way into the finish. I figure my best chance of running the majority of this race will be to have the knee as close to 100% as I can get it. In order to do that I decided that my last two weeks of training, which is normally the tapering phase in which workout durations become shorter, will consist only of elliptical work. This worked for me a month ago when I did three weeks of elliptical work to cool the knee down and then was able to go out and have a great run on my 15 miler. My hope is that with minimizing the impact / strain on the ITB, following my physical therapy stretches / strengthening exercises and continuing to ice the area ... that I should hopefully be near 100% come race day.
My workout on Tuesday was probably one of the first good workouts I have had in two weeks. The 20 miler that I didn't finished really seemed to take its toll on my psyche last week and because of that my maintenance workouts suffered a little bit. It was hard to get my head right and get motivated after I performed so poorly on such an important workout. Nonetheless, I came back strong and re-focused this week. I headed over to the YMCA yesterday after work and had a great 6 mile workout on the elliptical. Despite the fact that it was about 80 degrees in the Y since apparently they don't have AC, I pushed through and really nailed it. Its hard to even imagine this, but I really only have about 5-6 workouts left before race day. I will be back there later today and am going to plan on doing a 45 minute workout that incorporates a lot of high resistance periods which will hopefully mimic what its like to run hills.
With the race drawing so close, I have definitely started to feel a little bit nervous. I think the nervousness has to do a lot with the fact that I want to do well on this run. Everytime this thought comes up, I always have to remind myself of what my goal was for this whole experience ... To finish the Boston Marathon. As this was my first marathon, I didn't want to include a time in that goal and this is what I have to keep reminding myself. The goal was to dedicate myself and train to finish the Boston Marathon. If its 4 ... 5 ... or 6 hours ... it really doesn't matter as long as I finish. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.
Hopefully the last few workouts will be as good as yesterdays. In the words of Renee ... Time to Finish Strong.
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