It occurred to me that this knee injury is similar to one that I had in 2006. So I looked at my blog posts to remind myself of all the gory details. More on this exercise in a bit. First, let's take a look back at some other things that were happening in other past decades.
- 70 years ago, in 1956, I wasn't running much, except maybe a little bit around the yard. How could I? I was three.
- 60 years ago, in 1966, I was running, but only enough to get by in football and baseball. At 13, sports were my life. I think I liked track and field, but wasn't yet ready to participate.
- 50 years ago, in 1976, I was indeed running. The running boom was happening all around, and I was in the thick of it. But I was only just getting started. To the best of my recollection, my first serious road race was not until the Johnnycake Jog race the following year.
- 40 years ago, in 1986, I had already run a few marathons, and having made the move to Michigan, was just beginning to run regularly again and train for my next one, which would occur in 1987.
- 30 years ago, in 1996, I was pretty much at my peak, running-wise. Interesting that this occurred around age 43 for me. I ran my third-ever ultra, which wasn't a big deal, and I ran four marathons (two of them under three hours), which was. The last one, a 2:59 at Toe-to-Tow, precursor to the Towpath Marathon, was the last time I ever broke three hours. For that and other reasons, it remains one of my most memorable.
- 20 years ago, in 2006, I was also having a good year. Until I wasn't. In April, I ran the Boston Marathon in 3:09. It was my best time in five years. Now 53, I truly believed I had a chance to break three hours for the first time since that Toe-to-Tow race, ten years past. This time, my focus was on the Columbus Marathon in October. Hold this thought for one more moment, so I can discuss 2016. I'll be back.
- 10 years ago, in 2016, I was into ultras, in a big way. Although I'd done one marathon, Landis Loonies, my focus was on the four ultras that I did: Green Jewel 50K, Rock the Ridge 50-mile, Mugrage Park 6-Hour, and Buckeye Woods 50K. Of those, Rock the Ridge was the most unique and memorable.
Now, let's get back to 2006, shall we? I had run the Tahoe Triple the prior year. It was three challenging marathons in three consecutive days. To train for it, I ran long runs on consecutive training days. During the peak of my Columbus training block, I decided to run two 20-milers on back-to-back days. Toward the end of the second one, I felt a sudden sharp pain behind my right knee. And just like that, it was the end of my sub-3 hopes. I ran a painful 3:18 in C-bus and never managed to get under 3:10 again.
Today, I decided to look up the blog post about that incident. I never figured out exactly what caused the pain, but at the time, I speculated that it was a torn meniscus. Whatever it was then, I believe it's the same thing now.
The good news is that I did not stop running entirely, and the pain did eventually subside... after many months.
