The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old

Short run today.  Finally went into the sports therapist for a look at this knee.  Been pretty weird, sore on runs but holds up OK, very "loose" feeling and no support when walking.  It locks or over rotates sometimes, but pretty managable unless I go fast.  Well, apparently I have a torn ACL in the right knee.  For six months or so.  Not much they can do with that.  The choice to go in and fix it doesn't look too good, and according to the doc I can just try and run easy on it.

Best thing is a break from running other than some of the easy trail runs that I've been doing.  I'll be thinking this through the next week or so....

A full day with the kids camping at Sand Hollow resevoir.  Boating, Jeeping and hiking.  We have seven lizards in a big water cooler and should have 10 by tomorrow.

Still not sure what to do with the running.  Probably going to take a break and run what I can on trails like I have been.   Surgery is not an option.

Another day at Sand Hollow even busier than yesterday.  Hiked in Zions as well.  Lizard count is at 12.  Nice easy run.

Easy jog on dirt roads around Hurricane.

7 miles way slow up to the Bluff above St George.

3.5 with Rob in Salt Lake.

Spent the morning with Rob driving up to the Striders Half and watching the race.  First race I have ever watched and I really enjoyed doing it. 

Easy 6 miler in the cold.  I put together a few short clips from the Striders Half marathon yesterday.  Pretty bad camera action.  :-)  Next time better, I promise!  i had to convert down from HD as well since it crashes my laptop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_rfc0Oh2CU&feature=youtu.be

Nice day catching up at home and got in an easy 7 mile jog.

Quick run in the snow.  Busy day!

Today I visited the Orthopedic Institute of Dayton which is one of the highest rated sports surgery centers since I had an entire day in Dayton for work and wanted a good second opinion on my ACL knee issue.  First though, I got in a nice 11.5 mile run in Englewood Park, single track dirt trails for miles with only small hills.  At the sports center I was very surprised to talk to a doctor who actually listened, took a history, and spent nearly an hour going over options.  Even more interesting was that he disagreed with my Utah doctor that I had a torn ACL.  He was certain that I have knee Synovitis, a severe swelling of the synovial membrane around the knee joint which has swelled up and interferred basically with the supporting ligaments around the joint.  Good knews, I guess since it's more treatable. 

I'm going with this diagnosis from today.  Maybe because his advice is that I don't have to stop running, that I can work it into the therapy.  First change is leg lifting and no hills for a while.  No more mountain trail running.  He also said that if I did choose to run that I would be dealing with pain for the whole summer.  Great..

This evening went out with the headlamp for a 10 miler in the woods again.  Beautiful night.

Day at work starting at 5am on the East coast so another 3 hour sleep night.  Made it home just in time for the family get together at my house. Short run after I got them all out...

Sweet run in Atlanta.  Seriously lazy one...

Got out early for s run but the knee hurt so much I cut it early and headed back. At least got 5 miles though.  Late afternoon ran 10 miles of Fartlek.

Knee really hurt this morning and with two totally different opinions on it I'm just going to run as much as I can each day, stay off hills, and be happy with what I get.

AM- 8.6 miles easy.  Sunny and 75 degrees.  Spring is awesome!

PM- early afternoon 8X1mile repeats marathon pace, cool down and warm up miles.

Bittersweet day first with the great women's race at Boston and the incredible three masters under 2:20, then the senseless bombing.  Nuts.

6.5 run at 7 min pace in morning

7.25afternoon with some 400sr 

8 miles in the morning just freezing my butt off after getting the kids to school.  10 in the evening on the treadmill.  All I could take.

Today I did my first track workout in a long time.  Kind of an intro one so I would not hurt myself.  I vertical taped the knee pretty good so I would not have any movement side to side.  I went to the Nelson Fieldhouse at USU which was built the same year I was born.  I love the old atmosphere in that place and the old memories that it brings back.  I ran my first college meet there.  It reminded me of my experience again going from High School to College athletics.  I joined the High School team two weeks into the season in my senior year and decided there was nobody I couldn't keep up with.  I was a cocky little sucker when I walked onto college campus with a track and field scholarship.  I quickly found out that everybody was faster than me.  Welcome to the real world.  

Lots of talent, and I would have to work my butt off to even hold the back of the pack.  I didn't even know at first if I could even run with those guys. 

The fieldhouse is one of the few places left that has not changed at all.  Old lead glass windows, the same lockers I used 22 years ago, same pigeons in the rafters.  Neat to imagine all the feet that chased dreams around this rubber track.  Love the place.  USU has built all around that old building.  Did 4 mile warm up, pyramid speed work.  8X200, 6X400, 4X800, 4X100. 3 mile easy jog. 

Ran 3.5 this evening very easy for a shake out run.  I always seem to get through workouts better, long or hard ones, if I do an easy run that evening. 

As a side note of interest, Lee Troop, who BTW is Jason Hartmans coach, ran a 2:17 in Boston Monday.  He's a three time Olympian although his Olympic runs have been some of his biggest disapointments.  Now that he's a Master we will be seeing more of him.  But he's still an Australian even though he lives in Mecca (Boulder).  Anyways, it's interesting to me that he is my height, 5'10 1/2" inches but weighs 116 lbs.  Yep, he weighs over 40 pounds less than I do.  

Easy recovery run.  It was 21 degrees this morning in Logan.  I'm spending 45 minutes each day on rehab with the knee which feels like an incredible waste of time.  At least I'm catching up on movies I've missed.

Nice run in the light rain.  I think I feel good enough for a race tomorrow.  Probably the Half Marathon because it makes the most sense with my training, or lack of it.

First race of the year!  I was pretty worried about this race today considering a lack of training followed by this last good week of hard running.  I also didn't know how the knee would hold out.  Turns out it only hurt a bit during the race but I'm paying for it right now.

We stopped by Rob's to say Hi and of course my girls just wanted to stay with them for the night so Rob was awesome in taking them in for the night.  I got up to the race early and changed my bib over to the half since the entry that they gave me last year was for the full.  No way that I was going to run a full today even though the prediction was nobody wanted to run it.  That turned out to be wrong since a great field showed up for the full too.  I had a great time just being back into the running for the first 4 miles.  5:20, 5:27, 5:34, 5:28.  It appeared that the leaders were doing under 5 for some of those miles.  I was holding a pretty strong goal of running at sixes so I eased off a bit and just got in some miles.  I was completely freezing by now, hands numb.  I ran the last three miles at around 6:45 pace and was pretty happy that I felt no bad effects of jumping back into running again.  Good run for me, now it's time to continue with some training.

One clear impression from racing today is how fast you actually have to go when you want to run a Half Marathon in 1:10-1:15.  It's easy to forget when you are not training fast that you cannot race fast, or what kind of fitness it takes for that speed.  My imagination is always faster than my fitness.  One of the best things about running is that you have to walk the talk eventually.

It's cool to be out with guys that train so hard and run so well.  Hats off to those guys who ran that course today under 1:10.  It's certainly not as fast as the old half course was.

Nice run on the Logan River Trail with the kids on their bikes.  We have had kind of a dead spot for six months of running together since they grew too big for the double running stroller.  Now finally they are fast enough on bikes to keep up.  I'm looking forward to a year of them going with me.

 On a non-running note, someone has been egging cars and houses along our neighborhood for a month now.  It's taken me several hours if scrubbing a few times and left permanent marks on things.  Basically as soon as you clean them off they do it again.  Anyhow, I installed motion activated infared cameras this weekend and lo and behold it's one of the neighbor's 21 year old son and his friends.  One of those can't move out of the house kind of kids.  The Officer taking the report says this vandalism charge would go on his permanent record so I should think twice about pressing charges.  Been thinking this through today...

Currently making today's training report as I sit in a line of aircraft waiting for deice in Denver.  I'm number 12, three hours so far.  Today will be a goose egg for training.

Ran 8 easy in Arizona this morning on a trail I love, then ran 4 during a two hour break in Denver, and 9 tonight in Atlanta.  Nice runs, taking it easy after a race weekend.

I got home tonight at 11:45 and immediately headed out for a midnight run.  It's been a busy work week and I knew it would just mean fitting it in when I could.  Kind of neat running at night for a change.  6 miles @ 6:37 average.

First outdoor track workout of the year!  Hurt like hell.  But fun running on USUs track again after so long.  3 mile plus warm up. 8X200, 8X400, 4X800, 100m walk in between reps.  3 mile cool down.

Busy day organizing the PTA Walkathon for the kids school.  I set up a large circle in the field which 10 laps was a mile and the kids spent their lunch hours running around it while the volunteers counted laps.  It was surprising how much the kids loved it and it raised a good amount of money for the school.  Fun afternoon.  Pretty sore today for my workout.  This week I have been focusing on more quality in the running and not as much quantity.  It's amazing how out of shape I am right now.

Continuous run with some mile repeats at 6 min target.  2 mile easy, 4x1 mile @ 5:57 average pace, 1 mile at 7:30 after each one.  

I was going to help Walter pace the 30k this morning but my girls got sick and I ended up being stuck at home on a perfect race morning.  About noon I was able to get out for my long run finally.  Today was a flat, little faster pace, distance run and it felt great until about 17.  Then I had to work, just not used to running long at anything resembling a running pace.  7:03 average pace.

Relaxed run along the Logan River Trail

Track today at Logan High.  3 mile warm up, 8X1 mile with 400 slow jog in between.  3 mile easy cool down jog.  Aiming for 5:50 pace and ending up between 5:48 and 5:53, so pretty happy with this workout today.

I ran the Logan trail to Bridger trail to Crimson trail today up through the snow level at 7,000 feet.  Very sore knee from the last five days of running but really had a good time.  I rate  Crimson personally as one of my top ten trails in the US and it's virtually in my backyard.  So much freakin fun.  Not epic but fun.  It was good to get some of it with the Gopro since I've ran it a lot but never got pics.  This morning I also got my sponsorship pack from Gopro which is pretty neat and has a few headband mounts for runners not even on the market yet.

Strange enough considering 8 months of mediocre races, I received an elite invite to Bloomsday this weekend to race as a Master.  I'm sure it's only since a real master dropped out but still fun to get.  It looks like a fun race but seeing my total lack of conditioning it would be embarrassing.  Plus the kids want to go somewhere with the motorhome and I'm not driving that thing to Spokane.

 Follow up on the knee today and it hasn't gotten worse so I'm going to live with it the way it is for this year and take lots of vitamin I. 

I used the word fun four times in this report.  I'm considering using it to replace epic.