Running Around Illinois: The Interregnum

You haven’t seen one of these installments in a while, and there’s a good reason for it: I took three months off from any running because my knee told me to.

This installment then might be considered an extended musing about the perennial clash in my mind between patience and obstinance. I think many of you experience similar clashes and perhaps there is something here helpful to you, if for no other reason than because such clashes so often feel so vexingly isolating.

I had every intention of running 8-9 5Ks again in 2026, but things were a little slow at the beginning of the year, as I couldn’t quite make this date work or that date work. I only ran one race the first three months of the year - in Aurora in February - but I’d still been putting my training time in, and I was looking forward to the annual school district race, which this year started at Ogden Elementary in La Grange Park.

One day in early April, though, my typical treadmill run ended with some unusual knee pain. This was in my left knee, just below the kneecap, toward the inside, not a place I was used to feeling anything notable. It was sore for a few days, enough so that I thought, ugh, I better not run again before the race. So I let it rest for two weeks, and when race day came around, I wore a thin sleeve over the knee. I was apprehensive but ready to go.

Everything started off well enough. The first mile was just under 8:00 and the second mile was under 8:30. But the decent time belied that I was experiencing a distinct lack of power - my fitness level was there but something was a little off.

It was around the halfway point that my knee started asking questions. At first these were polite questions - how’s the weather, what’re you having for brunch after all this - you know, nothing offensive, but it’s like, why are you asking me these things, what do you really want?

Around the two mile mark the knee shifted its tone from mere pleasantries to some slightly more provocative questions - hey can you hear me alright buddy I’m talking to you - and the thing is when you’re running a race you’re kind of focused on breath and stride and not tripping over odd cracks in the asphalt and to have to also deal with this increasingly piercing voice asking increasingly irritating questions… well, it was a tough mile. In the end the final time of 26:38 wasn’t terrible, especially considering the course was slightly long (about 3.16 miles), but I’d really been hoping this one would be a breakthrough.

And so the race was over and I found a banana and some water and then and only then did my knee start asking angrier questions - hey who the hell do you think you are anyway, pal - and 10 minutes after the race I could barely stand or walk.

So I waited for a bit, got my breath back, pulled it together to walk, wandered on to brunch, and rested the knee for a couple more weeks.

Toward the end of April I was in Dallas for work, and the nature of those trips is a lot of walking, and I also tried running some on the treadmill, and was thinking, well, this is okay, it’s hurting a little but it’s not killing me. So, like, I thought, this is something I just need to work out over time.

The day after getting back from Dallas, my knee attempted to rip my tibia off and bash my skull in.

I didn’t run again for almost three months.

I self-diagnosed with patellar tendinitis - “jumper’s knee” - based on where exactly it hurt and also where it didn’t hurt. At first, I just tried to rest and ice and not much else. And it killed, every day.

So I went looking for other things I could do. I started doing more kettlebell squats. I started incorporating kettlebell swings. I found a new exercise using one of the machines at the gym, where what you normally do is push with your lower legs, but I would put it at max weight and do isometric knee extensions, like this:

I wasn’t running, but also, I wasn’t using the elliptical, I wasn’t using the stationary bike, I would still walk (because that didn’t really seem to make it worse) but I was trying to avoid doing anything else with it. I got a $35 knee sleeve and wore it every day for weeks. And four, five, six weeks went by, and it was better, but it wasn’t good.

At some point I stopped icing though. And about two months in, I wasn’t really having consistent pain… maybe soreness at night, maybe I could feel it when I twisted. It never went away but after about 10 weeks I finally got to where I thought I could give it a try.

I did some elliptical, I did some bike, all good.

And I finally ran, a mile and a half, after an 11 week break, and it was okay.

I ran two miles a few days later, and two miles again a week after that, and four days after that - just yesterday - two and a half miles. And my knee is all like: eh. I’ll take it.

So I’m building myself back up now with an eye toward next running a proper race in maybe mid-September. And I’m being stubborn about it. I fully intend to bear down and lose just a couple of pounds and get my cardio fitness back to where it was a few months ago and I’m aiming for thr 25:00 5K all over again.

What I’m going to do this time around is focus more on cardio generally while continuing to do more of the leg strengthening exercises, and not also necessarily trying to build up a lot mileage. Is this the right way to go? I don’t know, but it makes sense to me.

And no, I never went and got a formal diagnosis, I was one of those goofballs who “did my own research”, but here’s the thing… I’ve been to an orthopedist for other reasons before, and if my self-diagnosis was right, then the orthopedist would have had nothing to offer anyway. A physical therapist potentially could have helped but I was stubborn about looking up exercises and trying things out and trying to be as in tune with what my knee was telling me as I could be, and sitting here typing, I can feel my knee being just a tiny bit off, but it’s okay.

What I’m finding as I age and as things like knees decide to complain is that I’m going to listen and sometimes I’m going to rest but damn it, I’m not going to let any balky knee or whiny shoulder or anything else hold me back.

Working from home is the double-edged sword. My day job involves very little physical activity. Even having had a job in an office in the Loop, that still required a lot of walking, and stair climbing, and occasional sprinting to get to an arriving El train, but for ten years running, none of that. But the flipside is that I’m four blocks from a gym and I’m able to get there an average of five days a week, and it’s taking a while but I’ve fully accepted that I need that time as a side effect of having such a stationary job, and even if that ever changes, I don’t expect to slow down my overall level of activity. And, when I do get a cranky knee, or break my collarbone, or have a flareup with a bulging disc, I twist that around and make that stuff reinforce and drive me more.

The thing is that if it had taken four months, six months, eight months for the dang knee to get to where I needed it to get to… I would have stuck that out. And then as soon as I thought I was ready, I would have jumped in. And honestly I’m surprised that I haven’t overdone it, because I can easily imagine having waited, waited, waited, felt like I could give it a go, and immediately running myself into some other kind of tendon collapse.

Trying to be patient and staying patient… that is one of the most difficult things about being human. Hey, I can pick this thing up now, I’m going to pick ALL of the things up now! You can get away with that when you’re 12, I guess, but not when you’re pushing 50.

You have to be even more patient with yourself even though it might feel like the sands in the hourglass are slipping away. I’m completely serious about getting back to a 25 minute race, but geez, if I haven’t done it yet, it’s not like I’m going to turn it around and do it three years from now. And I’m not one of those people wired to shut everything else down and focus like a lunatic on this one thing. Such people fascinate me. I don’t know if I wish I was more or less like them…

But, hey, my knee seems to be ready to go. And so it’s going to happen. A nice Sunday in mid-September, perhaps. And again in early October, and a third time in late October, three shots at 25 minutes before my birthday comes around again. I might not pull it off - I mean, I probably won’t pull it off - but I’m going to give it a go and I’m going to be pleased with myself for the effort.

So the interregnum will be coming to an end soon. I need to get to at least one new county this year too, don’t I? What do you all say, who wants to meet me in Galena or Galesburg or Galva this fall?