RICE fuelled recovery

Fri - 5 mins - 1k @ 5:00 mins/km
Sun - 60 mins - 12k's @ 4:58 mins/km

The left knee niggle that surfaced during Thursday's run had worsened by the time I hit the treadmill just before lunch on Friday. I could only manage three minutes before the niggle became quite uncomfortable. As it was too late to see a physio or pod, intensive RICE was the only apparent solution for my recovery. I carried this out by crushing ice in a tea towel and wrapping this around my knee for 20-30 mins two to three times per day. This was followed by at least half an hour of elevating my left leg by resting it on a piece of furniture or such. At all other times, I had the knee firmly compressed with a bandage and I spent as much time resting as possible including some enjoyable sleep ins!

The result was that when I finally began my Sunday long run at 3pm, having delayed it till as late as possible for maximum recovery, I enjoyed a trouble free start to the run. I managed 10k's before the niggle resurfaced 3.5k's away from my car. I gently eased through another two k's with the niggle prominent but not as bad as it was on Friday. After 60 mins, I pulled up and walked the remaining 1500m back to my car. Interestingly, the niggle stopped immediately once I slowed to a walk.

I'm pretty confident that my ability to do 10k's without a niggle on the weekend suggests that I'm well on the road to recovery and further RICE can only be beneficial to my cause. I will skip speedwork at Pat's tomorrow however and go on Thursday instead. I've no idea what caused the problem and there are only two possibilities I've considered:

1 - I've recently switched bedrooms at home from upstairs to a large granny flat style bedroom downstairs known in house as 'the Bunker'. There is a single large step of about 30cm that you need to descend to access the Bunker and MJ suggested that more frequent use of this step could have unsettled my knee.
2 - I got a little bit too analytical looking at the photo that I posted below on Tuesday's 3KTT. If you look carefully, my left foot may be fractionally supinated and perhaps I've subconsciously tried to avoid supinating since.

That's all for now - I have to go crush some more ice in a tea towel. I'lll then roll my trouser legs all the way up and sticky tape the tea towel firmly around the knee. And of course I'll get the usual curious stares from my work colleagues!!!

Km's this week - 45
Km's this month - 69
Km's this year - 1383