Week 40: Gradual restart

My knees finally felt better at the beginning of the week, so I decided to go swimming to train without causing any trauma.  A visit to the Osteopath was reassuring as he agreed with my diagnosis of overtraining.  He explained that my leg muscles may have developed too quickly and that I had not stretched enough.  He explained that this meant that at night my muscles remained tight and this put strain on my joints.  This seemed logical to me as I have had trouble sleeping recently due to pain in my knees.  I have also found that stretching relieved the pain.  The Osteopath recommended that I stuck to runs of not more than an hour and a half to avoid additional trauma.  In the meantime he recommended long cycling sessions to build endurance.  I am happy to do this now that the weather is better.

I was also reassured this week after a launch event for the Echappe Belle (my race objective).  One of the organisers explained to me that the 47km race, that I have chosen, is well within the capacities of someone who does a lot of hiking.  There is no cut off time on this section, racers have 27 hours in which to finish.  This means it could be done as a fast hike.  I, of course, will try and run as much as possible.  The race starts at 10am and the first runners arrive around 4pm.  My objective is to arrive in the evening, before 10pm, which gives a pace of 4km an hour.  This is my fast walking pace so I hope to do better.

I managed to get out for a short 30 minute run midweek, despite feeling tired and unmotivated.  I felt much better after the run even if my knees gave me one or two twinges.  I also decided to buy a knee brace and I am going to trail some walking poles the next time I run in the mountains.
At the end of the week I managed six kilometres round the local resevoir, feeling comfortable and recording a very good time.  It seems that the three weeks of rest was just what my body needed.  My muslces were even feeling twitchy needing to exercise.