Recap - Surf City Half
Well, that was a little dicey.
I ran the Surf City Half Marathon this past weekend in Huntington Beach, CA. I mentioned in my previous post that I was excited about this race - running with friends and a good flat course was going to be a lot of fun, and an opportunity to PR.
But my continued runner’s knee issues morphed my excitement into anxiety. I knew going into the race that a PR was likely out of the question. But a few days before, I wasn’t sure I’d even make it to the start line. My knee wasn’t letting up. I’ve been putting my 2,025 miles in 2025 goal on the back burner, and focusing on strength training to rehab my knee. I was doing a pretty aggressive quad exercise during the week, specifically eccentric loading which I don’t have too much experience with. It was a good workout, but left my quads super sore, and unexpectedly, more pain in the knee.
I’ve been doing basic quad strengthening work for a few weeks now as a part of self-guided rehab. Most of those exercises were with lighter weights and with concentric loading (quad raises, etc.). Switching up the exercises was probably smart for long term rehab, but probably not smart the week before the race.
The soreness had me a little panicked about the race. Though I knew a PR would be difficult, I still wanted to show up, run as hard as I responsibly could, and finish. But the knee was really bothering me. I didn’t want to sit around and hope rest will help me heal, so I started really increasing the recovery efforts - muscle scraping, massage gunning, even foam rolling a little (which I hate). It was difficult to know if it was helping at all, but I just kept working the areas around my knee in hopes of some relief.
That got me to the start line on race day. The recovery efforts helped, but was far from a cure. I think it was a little (some might say very) risky for me to try running, but I had to shift my mindset and allow myself to quit if necessary.
Miles 1-5 were pretty hellish, physically and mentally. The knee was flaring up almost immediately. It was hard to focus on anything else - the fun vibes, beach scenery, the perfect foggy running weather. The Surf City half was an out/back course on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), with a small detour around mile 4. So it was super easy for me to just step off the course, and walk back along the beach if I needed to. I really didn’t want to do that though.
As I was having an internal debate with myself about whether or not it was smart to continue running, I kept thinking to myself - “Is it actually too painful to run right now, or are you just fearful of more pain that may come?”
Though it was painful to run, I started to admit to myself that it wasn’t too painful. So, I decided to keep running through the pain while still allowing myself to quit when the pain was more prohibitive. I know, this might be stupid. It’s probably smarter to foreshadow more pain, and quit while you’re ahead. But I wanted to try running a little longer.
A cool thing happened after mile 5 though - the pain started to ease up. I felt a warmness in my knee, which at first I thought was a bad sign. But then it continued to ease up. I was able to access a little bit more speed - not 100%, but I could pick up the pace. It felt a little like running before the knee hurt, which was remarkable. I was stoked to have pain-free strides for the first time in a while. I missed that.
As I started picking up the pace, I realized my fitness has definitely declined a little with this injury. I guess that’s expected. My heart rate was redlining for almost the entire second half of the race. I felt like an old car starting again after being stuck in the snow for weeks. I pulled back around mile 10/11 - a little because the knee was working harder than it has in a while, but also because my fitness couldn’t carry me at the pace I wanted. I actually felt good about that though. It had been a while since I was able to even attempt that kind of effort.
My time was 1:45:45. Not a PR. More than 15 min from where I want my half marathon time to be this year. But I finished - and I finished in better shape than I thought.
Since Sunday, my knee has been pretty sore. I went two days without running, but was able to get a 1 hour run in today at a Zone 2 effort. I’d say I’m glad I took the risk of running Surf City, and hope I can start reaping some good training rewards soon.
