so so new (Read 1303 times)

Welcome (though I haven't been running too long myself, so I feel a bit awkward "welcoming" you). Anyway... I had the same knee problem. I never did figure out what it was (one doc said it was the sartorius muscle and I did PT for a month). My knee now hurts at random times in random places. I'm not sure what it is. i realize that it's not much help....My suggestion would be to take it easy. Ice after your runs and see if that helps. If it gets worse, you might see a doc. Lastly, new shoes would be a good idea (suggested by others also). As others have suggested, I'd go to a running store to get fitted. Definitely worth the time.

Hello tolleyrose! I am fairly new to RA too, but I like it, so I suppose I can welcome you too! People have already given you great tips and I will add some of my own - which in some ways conflict with what other's have said. 1) I would agree that running a half w/o walking is doable if you were not dealing with knee pain now. I don't see your running log, so I don't know how much running you are putting in - but running too far, too fast is a path to being hurt. My advice is take it easy at the start. You are in this for the long haul, right? Focus on getting your training runs in, doing 5K's, avoiding injury, and having a good time. Distance and speed will come. 2) This may not apply to you - but - I had to get married a 2nd time before my (new) wife said something like: "Hey! Stupid! You have flat feet! Get orthotics!" I do have flat feet and I did get orthotics (inserts that I place inside my running shoes) and knee pain disappeared. I also watch how many miles I have on my running shoes and never get to 500. Oh! And I never use my running shoes for anything but running until they have been retired. 3) There is nothing wrong with walking, especially for longer distances. Look for stuff written by Jeff Galloway. He encourages you to take many, early walking breaks, to improve endurance, and speed, and reduce the risk of injury. I modified his walking break plan a bit for my long runs to walk for one minute at every mile (or X minutes) whatever is easy to measure. A minute goes by very fast and you may find that you will finish a long route faster if you start taking these short walking breaks at the very start of your long runs. The nicest thing about running though is you are free to do it your way. Just make sure you are having fun! John

Hey, great, another san diegan (although i 'm really a transplant from ireland). check out these guys http://www.wcroadrunners.com/ - i have heard good things about them and their coach. He might be able to help you on your gait. I signed up last year but lacked discipline not to go surfing instead of running on those early saturday morning training sessions in mission bay.... I always stretch now, before and after the run. My sports doc said i was one of the most inflexible people he had met and that it was contributing to my tight calves (got after the RnR). So i started doing yoga, it has helped me and i can almost touch my toes. Also you might want to think about the la jolla half marathon, really is a beautiful course though a little tough. It runs at the end of april... free beer at the end!

First: welcome! Love your avatar and your quote Second: if it's going to rain, get some Body Glide. Use generously. Trust me.

OK, dumb question - what is it and why use it in the rain? TIA! Teresa

Welcome Nicole!! You are getting the best advice from the others. I had really bad knee problems with my shoes I got at Foot Locker. The guy said they were running shoes. I did not know until after like 300 miles and knee pain that I over pronate when I run and needed motion control shoes. I went to the local running store and they saved my knees. I will say that if you go to your local store and enjoy them buy from them! If they are like mine here they do a ton in the running community and is worth the little extra to support them. As far as paces go here is a great site to find your paces for different type of runs/workouts or races. http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm just type your last 5k in and it calculates pace goal for different distances. This is a great article from the same site. http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/training1.htm Good luck and how old is your Weimie? we have 2 Weims. I love them, they have to be the coolest dogs in the world. Crazy in the head but worth every min.

You have plenty of time to train for the half. Your body will take time to adjust to training the amount needed to do the half and, fortunately, you're planning to give it that (good for you!). As others indicated, it's a good sign that the knee pain goes away when you are warmed up. It may cost a bit more but it is not a bad idea to try several TYPES (NOT brands) of shoes, ie neutral, motion control, etc to see what works best and if it alleviates the pain. A small hit on the wallet now could save you a lot of pain later. Yes, someone in a running store COULD be able to tell you what to wear, but whenever I send someone to most of those stores they emerge with the most expensive clod-hopper-weigh-me-downs on the wall and don't need them after all. Yes! Slow down on your training runs. You should only do a couple hard efforts every week. It's a classic mistake to run moderately hard every run....you get worse returns than if you ran easy most runs and hit the workouts well. A good workout at your level is simply to take a day you're feeling good, and accelerate over the last half of the run so that you are running near 5K pace for the last 1/4 mile. Good work, but not going to break you as you're only topped out a short while. Much easier to get used to than jumping into intervals or something, which you won't need for your first half if you don't want.

Tollyrose, Alot of great advice. Yes, you are running too fast. May have cause knee pain. It appears your 5K race pace is around a 9 min pace or even slower and you are running each training run basically at tempo pace which is a tough work out for you. Too fast! Generally, your training pace should be about 2 min slower than your current 5K race pace so that 10:55 pace is about right. One day per week finish stronger but not too fast on a run. Throw in some 100M striders once per week and slowly increase your miles if your body is feeling great. You will continue to progress and half marathon will be no problem.