Bill Menees's Blog

I've finished my first knife this year. I started running in February, so a lot of my free time has been spent doing that. But Amy and Aaron were out of town for a night a couple of weeks ago, so I took the opportunity to start a new knife.

I started a 15" Bowie knife back in January, but it was very hard to work on. It's so big I can't really work on it evenly with my sander or buffer. So I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally, I just stuck it on a shelf as a project for another day.

So I started fresh and decided to make a small knife this time. The first day I met with Bob (my knife mentor) he told me that making smaller knives was easier anyway because the bigger they are, the more room you have to screw up. That's certainly true. I intentionally kept this knife small, and it seemed easy to work with the whole time. My failed Bowie knife was a tedious disaster by comparison.

This is a full tang knife where I filled in the gaps between the handle slabs using thin oak strips. I originally planned to put a cord wrap on the handle, but the curved shape made that awkward. The wrap kept slipping off the end, so I gave up on it. Straight handles or handles with ends work better for cord wraps.

The sheath is the first leather work I've ever done. It's very amateurish, but it could be worse. I used some leather supplies that my father-in-law had as a kid, so they're probably 45 years old or more. The nicest piece was 4oz leather, and I only had plastic lace. Mostly I prefer woodworking, so I may go back to making wooden sheaths on future knifes. But we'll see. If I had 8-9oz leather and some basic tools for working with it, I'm sure I could do better.

My conclusion after finishing this knife is that I really need to get some better supplies if I want to start making better knives. At a minimum, I need to get sanding belts finer than 120 grit, I need to get some good knife steel (ATS-34), and I need a basic leather working kit. This art really is hard. I'm in awe of what traditional knife makers could do without any power tools or carefully manufactured supplies.

Material: Random stainless steel with oak handles and 1/8" steel pins. 4oz leather sheath.
Blade Length: 4 7/8"
Overall Length: 9 1/8"
Started: June 11, 2007
Finished: June 24, 2007

Labels: Knifemaking

Like an inexperienced goober, I overtrained and hurt myself. On May 13th, two weeks after the CMM Half, I was running the PWP 11.8, and I hurt my left IT band (tissue that attaches to the outside of the knee). The really annoying thing is that I had plenty of warning signs and just ignored them. The day I hurt my ITB, I was about 6 miles into PWP, and my left knee started feeling funny. By 8 miles it was hurting pretty good. By 10 miles it was a stabbing pain, but I still went around Luke Lea. By 11.8, it was stabbing and nearly locked up. The whole time the friend I was with was saying, "you should stop now." I sure wish I had that day back, or that I'd just done the 5.8!

I basically couldn't run for a month due to pain near my left knee. On June 15th, I finally went to a doctor that several local runners recommended: Dr. James (Jim) Johnson at Nashville Orthopedic Specialists (356 North 24th Ave Nashville, TN 37203, 615-329-2225). He referred me to Adam Carter at AustralUS Physiotherapy (1800 Church Street, Suite 102, Nashville, TN 37203, 615-329-3779). Now I'm using a foam roller and doing strengthening exercises to improve my overall running ability.

My improvement over the last week or so has been dramatic. I'm finally back to where I can run 5K (3.1M) without pain, and that's great. I've learned to re-appreciate being able to run 5K. I'd become so focused on training for a fall marathon, that I'd forgotten how much fun shorter distance runs can be. Basically, being able to run anything is nice once you've had to sit around for a month without running.

I've also replaced my old shoes, which Adam and others said were complete crap. Now I've got a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 7s and a pair of Brooks Vantage II that I alternate between. I was fitted with the GTS 7s at Fleet Feet in Brentwood, and Adam agrees that they're a good shoe for me. Then I went to Team Nashville, where Terry fitted me with the Vantage IIs. He says alternating between the two similar but slightly different shoes should help me.

Terry and Robert at Team Nashville both told me very emphatically but nicely that I shouldn't try to run a marathon this year because I haven't been running long enough. Between them they have 68 years of running experience and 44 years of coaching experience, so they probably know what they're talking about. Terry says he recommends about 2 years of running before tackling a marathon for everyone he coaches. Robert independently told me he'd recommend at least a year but probabaly more before doing a marathon. So, somewhat reluctantly, I guess I'm going to listen to them and skip the fall marathons this year. I'd still like to run the full CMM next April though. That will be after 14 months of training, so we'll see how the legs feel.

I'm already signed up for The Middle Half this fall (September 22nd), so that will be my longest race for the remainder of the year. If I increase the distance of my long run by 10% a week for the next 12 weeks (which is what Dr. Jim recommends), I'll come in at the right distance on race day. If I can run smart the whole time, maybe this injury business will be behind me.

For completeness, I should mention that on May 5th I ran the Davidson Academy Bear Crawl 10K. My time was 52:14, which was 6:43 faster than my previous 10K PR. Unfortunately, that race probably contributed to my overtraining and subsequent ITB injury. It was only a week after the CMM Half and a week before my injury. I should have taken some rest after the CMM and not gone crazy training for a fall marathon...

Labels: Running