My Road to the San Antonio Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon – Week 5

My knee still bothered me all week even though I didn’t use the treadmill.  I went to the doctor and she told me that I did not have tendonitis or bursitis.  Yeah!  She gave me a couple of exercises and told me to take anti-inflammatories.   She also scheduled an X-ray just in case.  After that I asked the hard question and I was afraid of the answer.  I asked if I could continue to work out.  She said “Yes” but not on the treadmill until the pain went away.  What a relief.  I was surprised at my reaction.  Before I would have been glad to have a medical reason not to continue but now I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to.  Wow!

John, the personal trainer, came by and suggested I hire him to help me stretch out the muscles and tendons in my upper legs since that can cause me to turn my foot out and cause the knee to hurt.  He gave me a free session and I decided to go with it.  It incorporated myofacial release and stretching.  Parts of it hurt.  I told one of the other personal trainers at the gym that John was a sadist and he asked me, “What does that make you?”  I should have known they would stick together.

I decided to get new shoes in hopes that they would help my running form.  Heidi and I went to the shoe store and they spent about 30 minutes watching me walk, trying on shoes, walking in them and running on the treadmill with them on.  They were thorough.  I narrowed it down to two styles and couldn’t decide which felt better so the shoe guy had me put one style on my right foot and the other style on my left.  After that, it was easy.  I was really looking forward to trying them out.

They did such a great job, Heidi decided to try some shoes on.  She ended up buying a pair and loves them.