On the road to recovery... I hope

I figured out that I'm dealing with a case of "patellofemoral syndrome," not patellar tendinitis. The discomfort hasn't really gone away. Knee is still feeling tight and uncomfortable, especially after swim practice (thanks to all of the pushing off the walls every turn).

Probable causes... see this great resource I stumbled upon on the web:

http://www.cptips.com/knee.htm

The good news is that I was able to ride, easily, for 25k over hilly terrain today without any pain/discomfort in the knee region. I converted the P2C into a "road" bike, complete with STI levers, drop handle bars and an "effective" seat tube angle of roughly 73 degrees (by moving the saddle into the most "aft" position possible); standard road bike geometry. I'm hoping that by including some work on the road bike each week, I'll be able to better balance out the musculature in my lower body and correct some of the imbalances that are currently rearing their ugly heads (my SI joint is still out of whack as well).

The only good that's come out of this knee problem: I'm swimming further and faster than ever thanks to my work with Dan Warner and the North Shore Swim Club. My main set on Monday: 3 x 500 @ 6:20 - 6:25 on 7 min. is a great example of the improvement I'm making under Dan. 6:20s for a set of 500s; not blazing fast, I know, but given the fact that before this month, my PR for the 500 was only 6:40, you could say that I'm pretty excited. What was most exciting was the fact that the effort that went into each one of those 500s was very controlled. It was nothing more than a tempo set and I felt on top of it every "stroke" of the way.

Well, with a little luck I'll be back at it soon enough and able to swim, bike, run and lift as much as my heart desires. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.