I\'m coming back from an injury and am having some problems...just wanted to know if anyone had any advice or suggestions, it\'d be much appreciated.
Here\'s a brief summary:
I\'m a 400 meter runner, a freshman in college...in the beginning of October, I suffered an injury to my knee...I forget the exact terminology, but the nub of the problem was that I over-pronate when I run (I always have done this since I started running in 9th grade and was never a problem), causing the knee-cap to be pulled to the outside, creating irritation and inflammation in the inside of the knee. Anyways, I got orthodotics in my shoes for the first time, went to physical therapy for 3 weeks...and the pain went away.
I started running again around Christmas time, on again off again, mainly because of work I had to do...once finals were over, however, I went back to practice every day, as usual, and have done so for the past 3 weeks.
Even though I\'ve gone to practice and done workouts...the pain in my knee is gone...but my legs feel weird, feel messed up. And I know it\'s only been 3 weeks, I should give it more time, but it doesn\'t feel like the out-of-shape weird feeling...or maybe it does, I don\'t know, but it\'s different from every other time I\'ve come back from injury or from some time off. Two main things:
1. My legs always feel tight...all the time. No matter how much I stretch they\'re still tight...and they tighten up on all different types of runs, on both distance runs and sprinting intervals.
2. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I don\'t have any, ANY of the explosiveness/speed I ALWAYS have had since I first started runnning back in 7th grade. I reach back for it and it\'s not there...usually when I am just getting back into things, or I come back from a little time off, say over the summer...the speed is there in the beginning, and I just lose it in the end, or I can\'t maintain it...I would run hard on the first two or three intervals and then would tighten up and die on the later ones.
Point is, I\'ve ALWAYS had at least SOME of that underlying speed/explosiveness at essentially any point of my life since age 13...no matter what the circumstance, coming back from an injury, or not having run in a month after spring track has ended, it has been there. Now during workouts, I reach back for it...and it\'s not there, at all...not even on the first interval. During workouts...when i try to go faster, make a concerted effort to do it...they lock up.
Anyways, I don\'t know what to do now and it\'s kind of frustrating. I don\'t know if I should continue putting the work in, when it seems like no progress at all is being made...or just take some time off. I mean I know i\'m rushing things probably, but it just seems that something else is wrong. Any of you that are still reading and haven\'t dozed off by now, if you could just provide some suggestions or a course of action, I\'d really appreciate it.