Margot's Blog: Walking instead of running to spare my knees

I have done some runs since the Snowdonia half marathon in which my knees played up. I have been careful! I did not want to make that issue worse. But I was also scared of not using my knees at all, which also could make the problem worse. My first point of call was the NHS website, which has a series of exercises for runners who either have or want to avoid knee problems; I have incorporated these in my now rather lengthy morning routine. Later I had guessed that the problem was related to my iliotibial bands (ITBs). They are exactly where the problem was, and during one of my careful runs in the Netherlands, I started feeling the problem again. I thought I might have to stretch. When I was wondering what sort of stretching exactly I should do, I suddenly realised I had forgotten to do the ITB stretch in the morning. So I did it there and then! And it immediately helped. So that strengthened my suspicion.

Both other runners and reputable websites told me that pain in your ITBs is an overexertion problem, and that you should not run through the pain. And I had booked an appointment with a physiotherapist who was known as a specialist in running, so be could probably tell me exactly what to do and what not to do, but until that time I didn't want to run too much. But I did not want to get massively out of shape.

During the week my exercise is biking anyway; that's fine; my knees had not protested against that at all. But in the weekend I normally run. This time I didn't want to! But I did want to give my heart and lungs something to do. And I decided to just walk up hills.

On the Saturday my initial plan was to go out in the evening with my tent, but during the day I was in the garden, and there were so many biting insects around that I binned that idea. I just picked a nearby hill I could walk up. In hindsight I might have chosen the path in the quarry; that is some 400 m up and quite steep, so that would be ideal. But I didn't think of it, and I walked in the Capel Curig area. That didn't quite get my heart and lungs going like running does, but it was something! And with nice views.

Cefn y Capel

Llyn Mymbyr on the left

Evening sun

Tormentil

Afon Llugwy

The next day I was going to feed Martin's cat anyway (he was out of town again), and that meant I would bike to the very end of the village anyway, so I decided what I might do is just leave the bike there, and walk up the nearest hill from there. I have run up y Drosgl several times from there, and this time I would only walk, but I wanted to do it rather fast, and I also thought I'd go all the way to Bera Bach, or perhaps onwards to Bera Mawr. That's 600m up! That should do something. Especially combined with the >100m biking uphill to get to the start.

It was beautiful! And I think I did manage to get some exercise out of it. Strava said I had managed to clock up a reasonable weekly total. But it still is nowhere near running; I checked my latest commute, and that had both a higher average heart rate (only by 2 BPM, but still) and a higher average heart rate than this walk. Even though on the bike, going downhill is no effort whatsoever! My last run before the race had a roughly 15% higher average heart rate than either this walk and my commute. Oh well. I will see that physiotherapist soon. I can't wait to hear what he says! And I hope I can be back running very soon!