The Next Step

Very nice morning to run. I had some pain in my left knee over the weekend so today I wanted to take it easy and stay off the road so I ran on the high school xc course. Just took it real easy and my knee felt good so hopefully this will not turn into a problem. I am going to continue to take it easy on it until it feels normal. Don't want any setbacks at this point.

66:56

Beautiful morning today for running. I still have this weird thing going on with my knee it is not really that painful but just enough to notice it while running. After a couple of miles I just decided to turnaround and rest it to see if I can get it taken care of before it turns into something worse. On the way back I was running along and looked up and saw a skunk on the other side of the road. Too close for comfort for me! After I got back I iced the knee and took some ibprofen. I am not sure if I should run tomorrow or not. I am going to see how it goes today then make a decision.

33:15

PM

Ran a mile with my daughter who is getting ready for xc. My knee was feeling better.

We have had some unbelievable weather the last week. This is not normal for Aug in Inidana. It is usually hot and humid this time of year.

Well after icing and stretching my knee yesterday it felt much better today. As I started out there was still some tightness in the knee but no pain. I stopped a couple of times in the first two miles to stretch it out and that helped. After 3 miles I thought I would pick up the pace and see how it felt running faster on it. Suprisingly, it felt better when I was running faster. I just kept up the pace and decided I would try a tempo run and see how long I could go. If the knee caused any problems I would shut it down. I continued to feel good so made it through 4 miles at tempo pace. Here are the splits (7:01, 7:03, 7:09, 6:54). I didn't really push it hard since I was being careful with the knee. I did a 1 mile cooldown and again my knee felt tighter running slower than when I was doing the tempo. Still not really sure what is going on but hopefully another day of ice/stretching will do the trick.

I am thinking about doing some doubles this week since I figured two shorter runs would be easier on the body than one longer run.

61:01

Another nice day this morning. My knee felt much better this morning so I decided to go back to my normal schedule. Starting off I felt really good and didn't really have any problems with the knee. There were a few times during the run when the knee acted up but for the most part everything was normal. I felt really good during the run but held back since I did some tempo work yesterday. If everything goes well with the knee I am planning a long MP run on the weekend. I will keep with the ice and stretching plus try to do most of my running off road to see if I can get the knee back to 100%.

1:45:17 (8:06 avg)

Another great morning for running (60, calm). My knee was feeling fine this morning but still trying to take it easy on it so went to Southeastway Park so I could run on soft surface. I only noticed the knee a couple of times during the run but for the most part everything felt normal. As far as running goes I felt a little sluggish when I got started but once I woke up and got warmed up the run was good. Just took it easy today since I am planning a long MP run tomorrow. It was nice to not have to deal with cars and just enjoy the beautiful morning.

67:40

Nice morning today (60, light wind). Today I planned to do a 10 mile MP pace run. I planned to do 5 miles easy then the MP run. My knee is still feeling pretty good. It did bother me a little in the first couple of mile but after that felt fine. I felt good starting out today and wanted to run the MP miles around 7:20 pace. Here are the splits for my MP miles:

1st - 7:27

2nd - 7:00 (ran the first too slow picked it up too much)

3rd - 7:15 (finally settled into right pace)

4th - 7:17

5th - 7:14 (into headwind)

6th - 7:19

7th - 7:16 (started feeling the effort here)

8th - 7:06

9th - 7:20

10th - 7:10 (wanted to finish strong)

Avg - 7:14

I was pretty happy with the MP run. The times were on target but seemed like it required more effort than it should have. I don't really think I could hold this pace for a marathon right now. I was really starting to feel the effort the last 3 or 4 miles and I had to push it to the finish. I am going to do a couple of more of these before the marathon so I will see how it goes and make adjustments on pace as necessary. Still a pretty good workout for me.

2:00:58 (7:34 avg)