Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

It was surprisingly warm this morning. I put on all my layers before heading out the door but then I turned around and took them all off (except my outermost layers, because I can't run naked). 

By the way, I put my name in the lottery for the Ogden Marathon. I assume that means I'll get in, so the real question is whether I can make it to May without a knee injury.  

This morning was windy rather than cold. That means the weather sucked for half the run but was pretty nice for the other half. Go, tailwind!

I'm eating a bowl of oatmeal right now. I've been back on a consistent running schedule for two months now, so it's time to start getting other things in line. First up is breakfast. I used to have oatmeal and juice every morning. For the last few months, it's been Diet Dr. Pepper and a sweet roll or cookies (I know, I know). It's worth a few minutes every morning to improve that.  

Mornings like this are the reason I have a gym membership. Honestly, I didn't even like walking across the parking lot, so I'm glad I didn't have to go outside and run. 

Treadmills get harder for me to do every year, so I need to mix things up to keep myself interested. This morning I did a five-mile progression run, starting at about 8:00 and finishing at about 6:20. 

Yesterday our landlord sent a plumber to fix a minor leak. The result is that our shower is now broken completely and won't be fixed until (hopefully) this afternoon. Although I probably would have run at the gym anyway because of the weather, today I really had no choice because I needed a shower before school.

I was going to run for 4-5 miles running the last quarter of each mile at 6:00. But the first fast quarter mile turned into three miles, so it was more of a tempo run than an interval run. It felt pretty good. 

Yesterday I was feeling something in my knee that I didn't like, so today I backed off a bit. Four miles of plodding on the treadmill at Gold's. Very boring. I would have rather been running outside, but I'm not that tough. It was a very cold morning down here. 

Catherine is pacing a group at the Halloween Half today, and that means an early start for her. I didn't want to wait until after her race to run, so I got an even earlier start and headed to the gym at about 5:00.

Basically, I just spent my time plodding along. I ran for about 70 minutes alternating between flat at about 9:00 and 6-12 percent grade at about 9:00-10:00. I ended by hiking for 20 minutes on a 21 percent grade. Nothing too demanding, but I think it was a good workout overall.

I did feel some twinges in my knee, enough to make me worry. I'm not sure if it's a sign that something's about to go wrong or if it's just me being paranoid. But it's been a long time since I've run consistently for so long without something going wrong. Sure, my mileage is low right now, but maybe I just get injured when I run regularly, no matter how far I'm running.