Step by step, mile by mile

so cleared the first test by the knee feeling good when i woke up. was gonna do an extra 5 this morning but i was so fired up from actually running again that it took me like 3 hours to fall asleep and i slept in too late to have time before work. it’s probably for the best for today.

PM - 5 after work + gym for weights. ran with an extremely heavy heart

AM - 5. took out my insoles; i get a new pair with every pair of pegasus’ i purchase(now say it 5 times fast tough guy) because i think the left one shifted and thought it could have something to do with the IT band. not sure if it did or my legs just feel better as they get used to running again but felt good. pretty convinced at this point that i should have just stretched it out instead of took time off, but what’s done is done

PM - 5. a tiny bit faster with the pace. feels so good to be training again

AM - 5 on the turf at 4AM. good ol’ faithful 

noon - 2. knee was a bit sore after the morning run; i purposely ran clockwise so my left knee took the most of the weight from 100+ turns, just to put a little extra pressure on it. it was a little sore after so i tried some new stretches and found one one that hit the problem right on the money; it made the knee ache a bit but i know it was in a good way because i was finally able to bend my leg the way i said last week without any issue. i knew it'd probably be sore if i didn't give it a few more hours but i wanted to test my theory that this is a problem that i can just stretch out; it lets me know how to respect it going forward. i was right about it being a little sore, more than the past 3 days but much less than before that. did the stretch, then did the things that normally aggravate it(kicking the leg back, heel-to-posterior stretch) and no issue. jogged around for a little bit more, still no issue. 30 minutes since then, haven't done my standard post-run stretching or rolling yet... no issue. so either way this is a win, it's an extra win if i decide to do a night run, but if not i'm still happy with it.

AM - gym for core, hips and glutes + a mile on the treadmill. no knee issue which surprised me but with the past 10 days of it i'm not singing kumbaya or anything. should be good to run after work though, might try going farther than 5

PM - 6 after work. wanted to do 9 after a couple miles of no issue but thought a smaller dub would be smarter than a riskier one. put off stretching for a bit by getting groceries first but i also bought a heating pad so i’d say it evens out for today, and was the better move for the near future. knee still feels fine but until i can triple again i’m not saying i’m out of the woods

SOTD: moanin' - charles mingus. eye-opening and mind-expanding jazz music

AM - 5 easy. felt good. splits were 7:09, 7:15, 7:22, 7:15, 7:09

PM - 10 after work. was completely exhausted by the end of the shift and thought i'd tap out at 2 but i willed myself to 5 and after that i just took it mile by mile until i hit 10. knee seems fine, guess we'll see if it has another sucker-punch up it's patella for me

AM - 2, then hips and glutes. was gonna do 5, knee wasn't sore but thought it might be around mile 3 so i drove to the gym, planning on doing weights for the IT band area to loosen up then another 3 on the treadmill. glutes made it a lot worse, but it feels a bit better a few minutes later. 

PM - 4. knee felt fine. wanted to do 10 but was exhausted from work and figured if i can do 10 after work tomorrow i'll have done a 60 mile week and likely proved to myself i can increase the workload, but i'll need to be super anal about recovery the next couple of weeks. or it'll sucker-punch me again because as AZ said on illmatic...

PM - 10 miles after a 10-hour shift. knee felt... like it was pretending to feel good so i'd say it felt good and get sucker-punched. ha! subversion