Ok, so I went to the Rex Lee Run with my son James with the intent of either pacing my younger son Jared or just getting in an easy 3 miles for the day. Jared spent the night at a friends and did not come to the race so I just planned on doing an easy 3 miles. However, after the start I noticed my knee actually felt pretty good and decided to go ahead and pick things up a bit. My first mile ended up being a 6:23 and that was uphill and with the first 1/2 mile a bit slower paced since I didn't pick it up until about a 1/2 mile or so. The next mile I tried to gradually pick things up since the knee was behaving. Went through 2 miles in about 12:43 so a 6:20 split. I was starting to feel things a little so did not really try and push but just tried to maintain pace to the end. I hit the 3 mile mark at about 18:40 so about a 5:57 3rd mile split and a 12:17 for the 2nd 2 miles. Ended up with a 19:23 overall 5K time. This was actually very surprising for me as I did not think I could run anywhere close to this kind of time based on my knee and the 3 miles a day I have been running. I think this was about a 90% effort overall on a hilly course so what surprises me even more is that I think I could break 19:00 on a flat course on a good day. So after 6 months of no running then 1 mile a day in JAN, 2 miles a day in FEB and two weeks of 3 miles a day this is where I stand. I am actually very happy and even surprised with this. Now if the knee pain continues to improve and I am able to keep the gradual progression going I know that at least I still have some good 5K and 10K races in the future. I ran as a bandit but had I entered I ended up abut 35th overall and would have been third in my age group.
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