Runner's Knee and Swimming

Felt like spring today, didn't it? I'll take that little taste, no matter how brief. I'm dealing with a bit of runner's knee and opted to take the past meltdown week off of running. Last year, Steve Leary gave me some excercises to regain some balance when I was dealing with the same thing. They worked then, and they're working now. If you haven't used the Tuesday night "ask the expert" series, I highly recommend it. It's the 1st thru 4th Tuesday's of the month and an amazing resource. The other thing Steve talked me into was to start swimming to encourage some rotation in my hips. Certainly, I'd been encouraged to swim before but Steve's argument was especially compelling and for whatever reason, it stuck. Now, a year later, I'm a very mediocre but pretty consistent twice a week swimmer. While heading to Juniper will never inspire me like a jaunt on the trails, swimming has won me over. In the simplest terms: it makes my body feel good and my running feel better. It sounds corny, but I even think my running is a little more fluid now. When I'm running more it helps with recovery and when I'm running less I can keep some fitness and sanity. I'm a firm believer that all activity is pretty good and love nordic skiing and biking and even play basketball in the winter (5'7" and not afraid to shoot). But for now, I'll say that swimming is the most directly complimentary activity that I have found for running. I remember when Priscilla Welch did a clinic at the FootZone a couple years ago and she talked about how she thought swimming can work like massage for runners. It doesn't feel that good, but it's worth checking out. Cheers-Teague