Adding Balance to Training

As far as training is concerned it has been a very rough month for me. The two weeks before the Pocatello 50 I had to back way off because of a hamstring strain, I had a couple of days after the 50 that I took off to let me body heal, and for the last week and a half I have held back because of a mysterious pain behind my left patella. All of these injuries have been on the same leg and it seems as though these injuries are all related. I think this because of a calf pain that nagged me most of the spring, which was also on the left leg. As I ponder the time that I have missed running because I of these injuries I started to investigate what could be at the root of the problem. After some serious google searching and talking to various health-care professional runners the consensus seems to be the un-balanced training of just running all the time. Because of my general lack of time in my life I try to concentrate all of my time on running alone, by doing that I am always moving in one l plain, forward, because lopsidedness the muscles in my legs that are responsible for other movements and supporting the running muscles have become weaker and more susceptible to injury. Thus the dilemma, I am short on time to begin with, I want to run more, but to run more and be healthy I need to add additional workouts that aren't running which means running less. It has become a difficult choice and hard thing to accept, but if I stay on the track that I am on now I will be more prone to injury which also means running less.

I have spent considerable time searching the web and reading different running coaches opinions on the matter, and it I feel that the most promising info, at least as far as my situation is concerned, are some well known workouts put out by Jay Johnson, a coach in Boulder Colorado for what appears to be Nike athletes. He was highlighted recently in running times with a series on building a better runner. Starting last week I began to incorporate the Myrtle routine and the pedastal routines before every workout and using the canonball cooldown after. (click on the title for a link to the workout). Although I have not fully recovered from the mysterious knee problem, it seems as though these may help balance out my workouts and not take up too much time. I am going to keep pushing forward, and cross training until the knee is healthy... hopefully healthy enough to race this weekend at the Wasatch Steeplechase.