Minor Injuries and 40 lbs. Packs

Ingrid reminded me this morning that I haven’t done a blog post in a while and that there’s plenty to talk about…so here’s an update.


We’ve continued with the pack runs, recently increasing the weight significantly (to 40 lbs.) with the thought in the back of our minds about potentially moving our goal up some and running Bataan again in 2011 instead of focusing on 2012. We’ve been feeling great with huge benefits from the personal training with Morgan and have been of a mind to push ourselves.

Rundown of what we’ve done since the last post (if I remember it all correctly!):

-9 mile pack run w/ 25lbs.

-10 mile pack run w/ 25lbs.

-double 7’s pack runs w/25lbs. (7 miles on Saturday, 7 miles on Sunday)

-12 mile pack run w/ 29lbs.

-7 mile pack run w/ 40lbs.

-10 ½ mile pack run w/ 40lbs.

Plus we’ve mostly gotten in our training sessions on Thursday nights, although we did miss two weeks. We’re back at that this coming Thursday night though, and looking forward to it.

We’re still not sure about moving the run of Bataan up to 2011. If we start now (which we have) and continue to progress (which is now questionable) with the 40 lbs. packs we should have enough time to train up to completion of the 26.2 miles running most of the distance before March rolls around. The questionable part is that as we found out last week the jump from where we have been to the 40lbs. pack is a significant one. We originally targeted 8 miles for the first 40 lbs. run, shooting in the dark as to how far we should expect to be able to go. Unfortunately, about 5 ½ miles in Corey had knee issues (the left knee, where a formally alive but now dead guy’s tendon was implanted 3 years ago after Corey blew his knee out playing soccer). I managed 7 miles, but scrapped the last mile due to extreme burn in the hamstrings, quads and calves. Probably could have done the last mile (with lots of pain) but I was happy with the 7 and didn’t want to risk an injury just for one more mile.

Then yesterday (14 Nov.) we hit the trail again, shooting for 10 miles w/ 40lbs pack. Corey coming off the injury last week decided to go “light” with 25 lbs., but had almost immediate issues with the knee again and in disgust dropped the weight back off at the car. He’s got an acupuncture appointment on Tuesday for the planar fasciitis he’s been dealing with and is going to ask them if they can help with the knee as well.

So we’re kind of in limbo right now. We’re going to wait a few weeks and see what Corey’s knee does and if he can use it adequately on Thursday night training sessions with Morgan. So far that’s been pretty good, as it didn’t impact the Morgan workout last week. We don’t know yet if we’ve reached some kind of technical limit where his beat up knee just can’t do more or if this is just a temporary “Dude, knock it off” warning. We’ll play it by ear and see what happens. Either way he’s not particularly phased, he just wants to get back to the point quickly where he’s not missing workouts at all.