fitness – LINISNIL

runners knee update

December 12, 2024December 12, 2024 alan Leave a comment

good news! the runners knee pain that i was experiencing back in november is no longer an issue. i’ve been clocking in 13-14 miles and slowly building back up to 15/16 miles per week the past two weeks and i haven’t been experiencing any pain around my patella. granted, i’ve been mostly been using assault treadmills at the gym (i got a 1 month membership to avoid the ice and snow of december) so that’s lower impact but i’ve also been running harder than usual so maybe it cancels out. I did spend a couple of weeks before that outside too so there’s good reason to think i’m pretty well recovered.

the funny thing is i think the thing that actually helped me was taking an entire week off running and ONLY doing strength training instead of doing both low intensity running AND strength training (specifically ones for quad strength building and my adductors). trying to do both was not actually working for me – i don’t think it was enough for the inflammation around my knee to actually subside. i live in a very hilly area so in reality even though i was doing low intensity, slower pace running i think i was still putting too much load on my knees.

so there you go, taking an entire week off running and focusing only on rehabilitation exercises was what finally helped. anyway here’s to another year of hopefully injury free running in 2026, peace.

my knee self diagnosis: patellafemoral syndrome (runners knee)

November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 alan 1 Comment

since increasing my weekly milelage from 10 to 16 i started noticing mild pain on the medial sides of both of my knee caps (my right more so than my left). i also added superfeet arch insoles into my shoes at around the same time, so that may have also affected my running mechanics.

from what i’ve been able to research, the most likely culprit is patellafemoral syndrome aka runners knee given the proximity of the pain to the knee cap. it’s on the medial side just underneath the knee cap. this hasn’t really seriously affected my daily mobility or even my running since it’s very mild, but it’s something i want to make sure i nip in the bud before it develops

here’s a table of common causes and which ones i believe apply to me

cause	applies?
kneecap misalignment	don’t know
overuse	most likely. 10 -> 16 is a 60% increase! recommended is closer to 10 – 15%
injury or trauma	no
week thigh muscles	possible – i haven’t incorporated quad strengthening into my routine yet
tight hamstrings	unlikely, esp. because i stretch these during yoga often
tight achilles tendons	maybe, i don’t stretch my achilles
poor foot support	could be affected by my new arch “supports” that may be throwing off my normal gait
feet rolling in	maybe? most of the roads and sidewalks i run on have camber/slope. when i run on the road, i run on the left so there’s a leftward slope which i’m sure affects my foot roll motion

of this set of causes, the top ones are likely

overuse
weak thigh muscles. quadriceps in particular play a huge role in knee cap stabilization and when the knee cap isn’t stable it’s more likely to result in inflammation when it’s not tracking smoothly
tight achilles tendons. tight achilles leads to more of a forefoot strike during walking, and that in turns causes the quads to remain tense and pull on the knee cap
feet rolling in. so the knee tends to go the same direction as the foot, but the quads will kick in and try to balance by pulling the knee cap in the opposite direction which can also lead to tracking issues

my current recovery plan is

incorporate quad strengthening exercises with focus on compound movements
- sumo squats
- bulgarian split squats
- squat jumps
- lateral jumps
stretch calfs and achilles post-run
reduce weekly miles from 16 to 14 or even back to 10-12 per week
- shift my current 8,2,3,3 pattern to 4,1,2,3 (halving my long run, then progressive increase throughout week)
remove the arch supports from my shoe (it’s an extra variable i don’t want to keep around…)
icing knees at end of day to reduce inflammation
knee cap mobilization exercises, also EOD

i’ll do another report in 3 weeks and let you know how it went!

short vs middle vs long distance

November 1, 2024December 12, 2024 alan Leave a comment

ever wondered what it means for a runner to be a “middle distance” or “long distance” runner? in the running / racing world there’s three main categories of distance events that differ by distance ranges

short or sprint distance

these are traditional 100 meter (100m), 200m, 400m, and the 4x100m and 4x400m relays. these are pretty much purely anaerobic events. anything beyond 400m is in the middle distance category where the running starts to demand both high aerobic and anaerobic work

medium distance

common track distances are the 800m, 1500m, milers (1609m) , 3000m and the steeple chase variations involving obstacles and water jumps. anything beyond 3000m is going to be long distance

long distance

this is where my current comfort level is with running, although i do most of my higher intensity work in the short distances. common races in this range are the 5000m or 5k (though some people also consider the 5k a medium distance event), 10k, half marathon (21k), marathon (42k), and beyond (ultra marathons) like a 50k (31 miles). pretty much most road racing and cross country running fall into long distance category.

the longest official race i’ve run so far is a super popular local 15k (https://www.boilermaker.com/). i’ve been running this race in the last 3 years. my impression is that the 15k is not a common race distance (compared to the 10k) because when i share this with people they always express surprise that such a distance is even a thing. my goal next year is to run a half marathon, so hopefully that will be my new long race record!

boilermaker fun fact: the boilermaker actually draws a good number of elite international runners – this past year the winner was john korir of kenya who’s one of the current top 10 marathon record holders!

boilermaker fun fact 2: not sure if this is verified, by i learned this through my wife. the event takes place in july, which seems odd because it’s a distance event that’s smack in the height of summer heat. but this is a couple of months before the marathon majors in the U.S (nyc, boston, chicago…) that run between september – november, so this off season schedule suits international runners that are training for the majors. i think this sort of makes sense because if they stuck the race in november, there’s probably going to be a non-existent elite pool…

anyway, here’s an easy / quick way to remember these ranges

short distance – up to a single lap on a standard outdoor track (400m)

medium distance – up to a 3k / two miles / 8 laps on a standard outdoor track

long distance – everything else

running training load update

October 31, 2024October 31, 2024 alan Leave a comment

i’m currently working on running a consistent weekly mileage of 16 miles this year and hopefully making my way up to 20-25 by the beginning of next year.

so far … it’s been going mostly good. a couple of weeks ago following a 5k race (i hit a pr of 23:57 at a 7:43 mile pace!) i started experiencing some very mild symptoms of runners knee / patella-femoral syndrome (more so on my right knee, towards the medial underside of the patella) but it seems to be subsiding / not getting worse over time. i’ve been trying to loosen up my quads a bit with rollers to see if that helps but i’ll keep an eye on it

my current training schedule is:

sunday	long run (8 miles)
monday	recovery / easy run (2 miles)
tuesday	recovery / strength training (lower body) (3 miles)
wednesday	easy run combined with a workout like strides or tempo
thursday	recovery / strength training (upper body) (3 miles)
friday	easy run combined with a workout like stride or tempo
saturday	rest / recovery. no strength training to prepare legs for long run the following day

this schedule is basically identical to the boilermaker 15k training program that i’ve been following for the last 3 years (very inconsistently). in my first two boilermakers i ran with my wife and we did about an avg 12min pace and finished in just under two hours. this year in july i ran by myself and finished in 1:28 at a 9:31 mile pace.

the key thing about this training schedule is that it follows a mostly low intensity, 80/20 philosophy where at least 80% of the runs are easy runs and at most 20% is high intensity. with 16 miles per week, 20% is about 3 miles and that’s how much time i try to spend in higher intensity running distributed between tuesday and thursday. outside of that, i try (but not always successfully…) to stick to an easy pace of 10-11min mile.

there’s a couple of tweaks i’d like to start making to my running moving forward to hopefully reduce any risk of injury and improve my overall enjoyment of running

adopt RPE (rate of perceived exertion) as primary measure during my runs instead of glancing at my watch first to gauge effort based on pace or heart rate. i run on hills often and sometimes focusing on pace causes me to go much faster than i should for easy days
pick a couple of specific and recurring workouts for my run workout days on tuesday and thursday. right now it’s a bit make up as i go and i’d like to just remove that decision making on the day of