Sometimes I stay up too late the night before a long run. This was one of those times. I was up late watching the Cardinals beat the Phillies and kept telling myself "it's 'only' 8 miles." Considering that my running has just started up again after the time off for my knee, I'd say 8 miles was not a trivial distance. And it wasn't it.
The weather was warmer than I expected - not hot, but certainly not autumnal. The knee felt decent and after I did some more exaggerated motions about 3-4 miles into it it seemed to loosen up. Right now, four hours and an OU beatdown of Texas later, it still feels okay.
The latest issue of Runner's World had a page about exercises to strengthen your hips. If the hips are stronger then that helps with knee issues. Yesterday I was doing my dumbbell exercises and thought, okay, one of the items they suggested was lunges. So I did a forward lunge between sets, and then tried a reverse lunge. At that point something twinged in my left knee and I thought about falling into the fetal position. It was one of those blinding flashes of pain. When I stood up, though, it actually felt better. I put it through the full range of motions and all of a sudden everything was fine. There was still a slight dull ache in one area that's obviously been over-irritated, but it hadn't felt that good in a couple of months.
I don't know what happened, but I wish it had happened sooner. Although I don't recommend it as a means of treatment, something popped back into place. I don't know that I'll keep doing lunges, but that one lunge unintentionally did the trick.
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