A quick note on my knee injury

At the Abominable Snowman race on 27 December I fell and hit my knee. Almost a month later and it is still causing me problems.

I’ll put my hands up now and admit that I haven’t seen a doctor, physio, or any kind of medical professional about this. Maybe I should have. Instead, I’ve been working it out myself.

There are two elements to the pain and I think they’re related.

Firstly, the knee cap (patella) itself has localised pain at the point of impact. It feels like a bruise, but it doesn’t look like a bruise and there is no obvious swelling.

Secondly, the area just below the patella, and sometimes to the left (inside) of it, aches now and then. It feels like patellofemoral tendinosis, but I don’t think it is. After all, this was an acute injury, not a chronic one. Unless, of course, the bashed knee has caused a slight biomechanic imbalance that has led to this pain.

I’ve had a really good, solid block of training up to this point, so I don’t want to lose any fitness. Therefore, stopping my training is just not an option.

I can run on it, and it doesn’t always hurt when running, but the pain was at its worst following an easy 16 miler. It’s also been aggravated by sitting in cinema seats, where my knee is stuck in a bent position for a long period of time.

My rehab plan, that I’ve been following for a couple of weeks and expect to continue with for a little while longer, is a mixed one:

• Ice, when possible (which isn’t as often as I would like).
• Replacing easy runs with hard rows. This has meant three rowing sessions per week.
• Keeping the hard running sessions. I’ve moved to a threshold-focused phase of my training, so at least I’ve moved out of high volume for the time being. This means only three runs per week — one of which has been hill sprints.
• Kinesio tape to alleviate the bruising (even though I can’t see any bruising, it feels bruised) and offer moderate support.
• ‘Crystal Palace’ taping of the patella tendon to reduce the load when doing running sessions.
• Rolling my quads.
• Bodyweight strength exercises — especially on hips, VMO, and hip flexors.
• Isometric exercises — pushing against the wall under my desk.
• Making sure I get plenty of protein.
• Not doing anything silly.

The good news is that, in the last few days, I feel as though it is improving slightly. The test will be tomorrow’s running session which will probably put a fair bit of load through the knee.

I don’t want to have to maintain this ‘recovery protocol’ any longer than necessary, as running is the best running training, but I’m fully prepared to keep going for another fortnight up to the Chichester 10k. I’d rather have a week of unnecessarily cross training, than rush back to running and delay the recovery.

I’ll update more in due course.