Ultramarathon - part 3

The unthinkable has happened - i've picked up an injury in my left knee :((

I wouldn't classify this as serious enough to prevent me from starting the race next week, but it has certainly messed up my head, with less than a week to go until race day.

After my long slog over the hills last weekend I went out on Monday to do a nice fast 10km, and it went really well - one of the great things about running longer distances and climbing bigger hills is that you naturally perform better on the shorter distances - I ran my favourite 10km route faster than I have all year, by more than 2 minutes!!

As soon as I woke up the next morning though, I knew I'd ****** myself up. I can feel the kneecap clicking & moving around, which it shouldn't do, and just sitting in a chair all day the muscles above and below it are constantly throbbing and aching, as I guess they try to stabilise the situation.

I've decided to just take it totally easy between now and the race. On Friday I went to a leisure centre nearby which has a sauna & steam, and just sweated it out for a couple of hours. On Saturday I went for a full hour sports massage, which really did help. Mostly I'm just going nuts, sitting in the house trying not to work the leg at all.

I'm not concerned by the lack of any further training, as I think that this close to a race you don't tend to get any stronger, you just tire yourself out. I just really, really don't want to get part-way round the race and have to pull out with a destroyed leg.....