Hmmm - This Is Not Good

Last Thursday, I did hill repeats on our local "hard" hill. I felt really good doing them and I felt ok the next day. Hard ride on Saturday and I feel good - no pain anywhere. That is until I'm laying on the couch later that afternoon about to take a nap. My left knee is bothering me a bit, but I just shrug it off as "whatever". It doesn't hurt to bend it or anything like that (not like when I got hurt last year).

So, I really think nothing of it until I go out on Sunday evening for a ride. Not very long into the ride, maybe 5 minutes, I notice this pain behind the knee and to the outside. Hmmmm, what's going on?? I continue on with the ride, but this is really bothersome. No pain when not riding. I take Monday off, just had some personal issues to deal with and it was pretty windy.

Then yesterday, I head out to do my 3x10min intervals. Uh oh. I feel the same pain after 3-5 minutes. That's quick. Oh well, maybe it will get better are my thoughts. I do my intervals, but I really notice the pain now. So much so, that I don't do the last one very well. Finish that one up and I'm probably 10 miles or so from my car. Well, maybe I'll just take it a little easier to get back. Sigh. Now it really hurts. I have to concentrate and put more effort into the right side pedaling and sort of just let the left "be there". Try to do that soft-pedaling thing everyone has told me about. I think I did it ok.

It's getting late, around 7:30pm and I'm now about 5-6 miles from the car. I seriously consider calling Lawrence to come get me, as I know the Hammer guys are probably done with their ride, but I suck it up and continue on. It was also getting pretty dang cold too. I'm freezing, my knee hurts, and I just want to get back to the car and turn the heat on.

Finally get home, get the shower, eat supper and ice the knee. I'm gonna load up on the 800mg Ibuprofen and stretch a bunch the remainder of the week. Hopefully, I won't aggravate it too much this coming weekend. I think it could be the IT band, so I'll work on stretches for that as well as just general leg/hip stretches. It could also be that I stopped wearing the insoles in my Converse shoes last week. Someone posted something about that on one of the forums I frequent, so I put the insoles back in the shoes this morning. I just need to make it through AoM and then I'm planning on no structured training for the month of June. Just ride to ride and take it easy.