Proper training with some pain

stats of the week: run 31 km, zwift cycled 46 km, gym 3 h

Finally, I managed to complete a full week of proper training. I ran 12 km on the treadmill where as part of my daily routine before breakfast, I walk 500 meters and then jog up to 2 km. I’m happy that my meniscus remains stable, but unfortunately, the cartilage in my kneecap is still worse than before the surgery. Interestingly, I’m pain-free while running, but as soon as I stop, the pain kicks in - only to vanish again once I start jogging. Crazy.

A new setback is some muscle pain in my legs, which I suspect is caused by the new medication prescribed by my urologist - pills I now have to take daily for the foreseeable rest of my life. I’ll experiment with reducing the dosage to see if half might be enough.

Me on Zift May Field:

Training camp light

stats of the week: run 9 km, cycled 75 km, walked 21 km, gym 1.5 h
stats of the previous week: run 17 km, cycled 75 km, walked 26 km, gym 1.5 h

As expected, my Lanzarote holiday turned into a rather relaxed training camp - not that I’m complaining! I managed to stay active every day, switching between walking, jogging, and cycling. In total, that added up to 25 km of easy jogging, 44 km of brisk walking, and 150 km of leisurely cycling. Hardly the training plan of a marathon champion, but still satisfying. My meniscus played along without any complaints!

Now, looking ahead to the Lisbon Half Marathon—the official time limit is 3 hours, which means I need to maintain a pace of 8 minutes and 32 seconds per kilometer. If my knee is on board with the plan, a mix of running and walking should do the trick. Fingers crossed!

Some Lanzarote photos:

Training camp waiting for stubborn knee

stats of the week: run 7 km, zwift cycled 40 km, walked 24 km, gym 3 h

I received my fifth and final hyaluron injection, but unfortunately, there hasn’t been any significant improvement so far. On the bright side, I was able to jog 6 km today with a calm meniscus, which is encouraging. Still, I have serious doubts about making a proper comeback to competitive running.

Our 10-day training camp on the island of Lanzarote will be the real test. I noticed on Instagram that Patrick Lange is there as well. If I spot him, I might just take advantage of his slipstream...

Photo from last year:

Another setback

stats of the week: zwift cycled 52 km, walked 22 km, gym 3 h
stats of the previous week: run 21 km, zwift cycled 41 km, gym 3 h

My motivation to post has been quite low since the new year didn’t start as I had hoped. After completing the New Year's Eve 5K race, my meniscus flared up again, forcing me to stop running. I underwent a series of five hyaluron injections, which may help with the cartilage issue but unfortunately won’t address the meniscus problem.

With less than two months to go until the Lisbon Half Marathon, the trip is already booked, and we plan to travel regardless of whether running will be possible. Fingers are still crossed - I plan to ease back into light jogging next week.

Lazy week

stats of the week: run 4 km, Zwift cycled 22 km, gym 3 h

With some recovery from the Christmas Run and a weekend journey to Berlin this week was somewhat low level in question of sports. At least we walked a lot around Berlin visiting several Christmas markets, Charlottenburg Castle and the Jewish Museum. Looking at my running performance it is still kind of breathless while jogging at low pace.

Christmas step forward

stats of the week: run 15 km, zwift cycled 21 km, gym 3 h

Not surprisingly I could not resist to run the local 5K christmas run. I managed to finish it without walking in between so it was a step forward. The pace of 5:39 min/K was okay so far but I reached my limits. So there are doubts I will find back to pre-surgery performance.  However, I will be happy if I am able to complete longish distances without knee problems in the oncoming weeks.

Photo: I was the only runner in my age group but 82-year-old fellow runner Siggi was forced to join my group so I felt a duty to let him cross the line first.

Further improvement

stats of the week: run 10 km, zwift cycled 54 km, gym 3 h
stats of the previous week: run 10 km, zwift cycled 42 km, gym 3 h

I developed the cautious jogging workouts to a switch of 100m of walking with 400m of running. I was surprised how I lost the feeling for pace. The short stretches of running turned out to be way too fast I had to notice after looking at the Garmin stats. 

As I am now able to run 5K within 31 minutes I decided to take part at the local Christmas Run next Sunday. Just to be part of the event and enjoy the day.

This one is very long ago: