Mountain biking and cross-country running as cross-training for triathlon.

This post too is being written in January 2015 (see last month).

November was as simple as October; no races, lots of easy mountain biking, plenty of running, and continuing to work on fixing my left knee.

After the mtb-commute wipe-out at the end of last month, in which I smashed up my right knee pretty badly, I couldn’t run for about a week. I kept biking, and the rest seemed to be good for my running, as I then managed a lumpy threshold 12km run – with no left knee pain – which TrainingPeaks gave an IF of 1.02. However, over the next few runs the pain gradually came back, not just the pain and tenderness on the joint line, but all the various compensatory niggles in tibialis anterior, hip flexor and lower back. 🙁

Yoga has helped straighten me out and I have been back to see osteopath/physio Joe Allnutt. Each session with him seems to offer some improvement, and the knee has never got as bad as it was in the first week of August after I did whatever I did, but neither is it fully healing. Joe’s given me more exercises to do, but I’m starting to think I need to go the next step and get a scan on the MCL/cartilage. I do not want to be limping through next season if possible!

It’s been nice to fit in some more sociable training too, Monday lunch mountain biking with a small crew from work, and doing the first part of a Saturday morning run with Em while the kids are at a gymnastics class.

Finally, here’s the comparison between this month’s training, last month, and this month last year.