Meniscal Entrapment - Don't Let Injury Go Too Far

Coming off an insanely awesome 4 weeks of running, the old knee started feeling cranky again. Last year when I injured it before the half marathon one of the issues was meniscal entrapment. It's definitely a very familiar pain, hard to describe. It's not joint pain or muscle pain, it's like this intense aching pain in the hollow space of my knee.

When I feel this start to come on, usually some time with the foam roller and the stick on my IT Band and quads does the trick. This weekend I found a particularly tight spot on the IT Band and worked it out, went on the next morning to run a great 5k and thought (rather smugly) that I had cured myself.

Then, like the dumb ass that I sometimes am, woke up the day after the 5k and ran 8.3 miles, and then went to xc practice and ran 300m intervals. Duh.

Monday I asked around for friends for a lunch run, and a speedy guy joined me. I told him I wanted to run easy and figured he would hold an easy pace. I wasn't really looking at my watch, but knew it wasn't exactly easy. At one point we were running a sub 8 min mile. Oops. But I felt good! So we did 5.3 miles @ 8:15 avg pace, still feeling good.

But as soon as I got in, I felt this pain in my knee. By the evening it felt almost like my a section of my leg locking up. Ibuprofen and Aleve did nothing. I finally had a chance to sit and ice it which helped a lot.

This morning I googled meniscal entrapment and came across this information. It's what I needed to hear as I was contemplating running today - but entrapment is a pre-cursor to a meniscal tear. It's also encouraging to read in detail about the ART technique, which my chiro practices. I also find it interesting that the treatment is opening up the joint space between the tibia and the femur to release the entrapment. My IT Band on that leg gets tight, and I wonder if it pulls funny on the knee, allowing for the entrapment in the first place. When I foam roll the IT Band and get it to loosen up, maybe that helps release it? Just a theory, but may explain why I can nip it in the bud when I first start feeling a hint of that familiar pain.

At any rate, the moral of this story is to take stop and do an honest analysis when something feels off. Unfortunately my dr is at a seminar and not back until tomorrow, so I won't be running til I see him. Ok, if it feels way better, I may run easy, but I will listen to my body!!