Kneeded To Rest

Last week I finally over-did things and injured myself and, more specifically, my right knee. It was, inevitably, entirely my fault and something I could have avoided if I’d swallowed my pride.

For the last few weeks, after cycling for more than about half an hour, my left knee had been getting sore. The pain would pass after a few minutes off the bike and I felt it was something to do with my position on the bike and I just needed to tweak things. I didn’t take it too seriously and had been gradually been nudging the height of my saddle up. Things started to feel better in my left knee but my right knee ached a little instead. But again, it passed after a few minutes of not cycling and I wasn’t too worried.

On 25 May I did a Zwift group ride up Alpe Du Zwift, the digital equivalent of Alpe d’Huez. The ride itself, effort-wise, was fine because I’d consciously decided to take it easy. But it took two hours which was my longest ride yet and by the end of it my right knee was aching a lot. My knee had been okay for the first hour, wasn’t too bad for the next 30 minutes but was noticeably sore for the last half hour. I should have stopped but I was close to the top and didn’t want to quit. And for the first time the pain took more than a few minutes to pass.

My knee was still sore the next day (and my legs were really tired) so I settled for a rest day and then, on the Tuesday, did a Zone 2 recovery ride to help my aching legs. That ride was an hour and again I finished with some pain in my right knee which lingered. Again, in retrospect, I should have abandoned the ride as my knee got sore or, at least, taken a short break.

The following day I started what should have been the final week of the Couch to 5K plan. I managed to run for the full 30 minutes and enjoyed it but was aware that, particularly when running downhill, my right knee was suffering. On Thursday morning it was stiff and sore and I realised that I’d overdone it and needed to give it some time to rest which was very frustrating because I really wanted to finish the running plan and after eight prior weeks of achieving the three runs each week this felt like failure.

Over the next few days I was acutely aware that my knee felt sore and weak. But after four or five days I was getting restless and wanted to go for a run but my knee was still not feeling great so I waited. Going for a run and causing more damage was not the best plan.

However by yesterday things were feeling a lot better and my cabin fever was bad enough that I needed to do some exercise, even if it was a five minute run, cut short if my knee wasn’t holding up. As well as being worried about that I had in the back of my mind that a week with no real exercise was going to be bad news and envisioned my run being like my very first ones two months ago. Under very grey clouds and a grim-looking weather forecast I set off…

… and it was all good! The rain didn’t come, my knee coped with 30 minutes of running and, rather than gasping my way through it all, it was fine and my watch told me at the end that I’d run faster than I had a week earlier. It felt good and I am hugely relieved that my knee was rested enough to sustain exercise again.

And lessons have been learnt. The main one is that, if I ever feel something is wrong when I am doing some exercise then I need to stop and evaluate it. Being “brave” and carrying on regardless is not a great plan. The second key take-away for me is that I do need to get on with starting some strength exercises. It is possible that my sore knee during cycling is not (just) a bike fit issue and it could be a muscular imbalance or just a general weakness. I know that this needs attention (my squat attempts are pitiful) and I now need to find a gym or, perhaps better for a recluse like me, a personal trainer to give me an initial plan and then regularly review and evolve it.

But in the meantime I’m running again, will be doing Zwift rides again, and will be finishing Couch to 5K very, very soon.