After that race was over, I decided to really focus on strength training. I had stopped most of my strength training due to a knee injury-- chondromalacia patella. For some reason, for about two years, anytime I do squats regularly, I get knee pain. I also get it from running too many long runs back to back. So, I gave up squats after my physician's assistant told me that loading a bent knee was a bad idea. But I can tell the DIFFERENCE. I loved squats. I felt strong when I did squats.
After 3 months of pain-free running and a sub-par half marathon, I declared myself healed and started doing squats again.
Sigh.
Nope. I've had knee pain for a week and a half now. I've just got to accept that I can't do squats, and I can't do squat about it!
I will have to find other ways to strengthen my legs. I already run hills and trails. Maybe that's enough.
I did have a great hike (with a tiny bit of running) this past weekend at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. I loved the rocky trail!
I am going to run a trail half at the end of the month, and then I'm going to ease off the distance running and focus on 5K and 10K.
