Injury Prevention

One of the hallmarks of an elite triathlete is the ability to train consistently without injury and, should the injury beast rear it's head, to deal with it quickly and efficiently.

Ibuprofen

I'm doing my best to emulate this in my training. I went on a 3 hour ride last Saturday which included numerous hard TT, hill, and sprint efforts. On a tempo run the following day, anterior knee pain developed to the point where I could no longer run and I was forced to walk the 3 remaining miles back home. I took the next 6 days off, and iced my knee regularly while taking a regular course of ibuprofen. On the 7th day, I raised my saddle 5mm and went on a 50min easy ride. No pain or tightness in the knee left me feeling confident to try a 30min run the next day. No pain or tightness again. I was extremely happy and glad to be back training.

Then today (that 30min run was last night) I go out for an hour long run and, sure enough, feel tightening develop about 45min in. I walk the remaining section and internalize the lesson that recovery has at least two components- proper rest, but also, proper re-acclimation to training.

I'm icing my knee right now as I type this. Please do yourself a favor and recover properly. Your uninjured future self will thank you for it.