2011 Streak Day 198/365: Run - 3.11 miles, Time - 30min 41sec, Weather - more scudding clouds and periods of rain
This is the first time I have run for three days in a row for ages and I am not sure it is a bright an idea. At the end of today's short outing I began to feel a twinge in my knee and retired to treat it with ice and rest. Luckily it is only a twinge but these days I take no chances.
I have lost all faith in the ability of my body to heal itself.
When I was younger I had an unthinking faith that if I sprained, twisted, strained, bruised or in any other way knocked my body about, it would only take a short time for everything to be put right. All my body needed was a bit of rest and protection and then, as if by magic, it would restore itself to working order.
Silly and unthinking I know but that is the way I thought - and mostly it was true. However now I have learnt one of the sad lessons of ageing: the ability of the body to regenerate slows. The worst things are tendon strains - Oh My! do they take a long time to get better; but they are just the most extreme examples, everything else takes time to heal as well.
The result is that I am now much more cautious. My running mileage is still low and I will only build it up if I feel I can.
Although I have just run three days in a row, the distances were short. It should not have caused any problem. But just to be sure I will be going back to a maximum of every other day for a couple of weeks and then build again.
As I have said many times before the greatest virtue in running is consistency and that can only happen if you always operate below your breaking point
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