Most of you know by now that I have bursitis of the knee. I’m living in a sort of ‘Runners Hell.’ I haven’t run in 5-6 weeks and am heading to Ireland to run the Connemarathon next Sunday. It should be interesting.

Ive been reading a lot.

I can hear a few of you, “Baker, that sounds like a bad idea. What if you hurt your knee even more?” Excellent point!

Before we talk about safety lets address the cause of my knee problem. At first, I thought I had injured it from doing a speed workout 1 week prior to the Gasparilla Half. Then, after researching ‘Chondromalacia patellae’ which is one of my ailments I came across an interesting sentence. ‘Skateboarders most commonly experience this injury in their non-dominant foot due to the constant kicking and twisting required of it.’ Oh snap! I looked back at my trusty Daily Mile log and sure enough, the same week I did the speed workout I had skateboarded to work for the first time in months!

My dear Watson, we’ve done it, The Case of the Curious Knee, solved!
Drink Coke, not Pepsi.

I love skateboarding to work. I love running and triathlons a lot more. Thank god the weather has been crap otherwise I would have been really going nuts. 

For the last 10 days I have been icing my knee every hour, on the hour, for 10 minutes and eating Advil as a snack food. I have not done any strenuous exercise aside from swimming and core work. I have been a really good patient, I even skipped a race.

Now for the good news! I just went out for a run as the knee pain is non-existent the last few days. I ran 1/2 of a mile with zero pain! Then, a slight ‘twinge’ so I stopped just for safety sake.

The end is near my friends, I can feel it!

I will, however, not run the Connemarathon if there is pain present. I am coming home with hardware though, so I might just loosen my ego and power walk the hell out of the course! Look out!