Cool Runnings

We met at sugarhouse and did the cemetery run today. I kept up with Chris, passing the girls, Patrick, and Geo, until we got into the cemetery. Then I didn't know where to go. Luckily Amanda and Susannah soon appeared to crack the whip. Just a couple hundred meters into the loop around, my left knee started hurting again--more payment for being stupid last week--so I dropped back with the infirm Scott and we did a gimp lap together.

Then we left to get back to Sugarhouse, not wanting to get totally left behind, and we were passed by Emily, Tomy, Taylor, Ben, and Bill around the time we almost got lost instead of turning onto Melbourne. We made it back just behind the intermediate group, and just in front of Bill and bloody Ben.

I was starting to feel better around the last mile of the run, so after Scott went home I did a small grass lap around the park, in decent time, I think my average was under 8. Then I did core with Ben and Amanda.

Good news, I saw a dawg today.

Flagpole run from Sunnyside.

I kept with the group until the zoo, so like the first 2 miles.  For some reason with the wind and the hill and my shin splints, I just couldn't get into a pace that worked for me, so once I didn't have the other runners to base pace off of I kept slowing down without really realizing it. 

While running along Wasatch I became pretty sure that I was lost...which disheartened me further. I don't know if I was or not, but I did find the flag pole at long last (about 8:40am) and the freshmen were just getting ready to leave there. I spent almost 10 minutes trying to find the ledgendary drinking fountain by-the-flag-pole to no avail. So I started running back.

After only a short while I finally got into a groove and was really starting to move, but when I got to 17th on Foothill I caught Mac and Travis. I figured my time would be better spent "encouraging" them to run than hustling back myself. So I ran with them, pushing them heartlessly I'm sure they'd say. We caught all of the walkers at some point, but most of them started running rather than admit defeat to me and Travis. Despite this we stayed ahead of some people and finished running, so good for little mr ouimette.

In the words of Ben Pearson, "Some days you have it, some days you don't." Today was much closer to the having it side than Monday and Tuesday, that was nice.

We met at the Region course today. Warm up was hard. Bill took off after the first 45 seconds, and Ben Taylor and I didn't really notice until he and Chris were gone. Abigail and Sarah caught us, and I led for a while. Then I think Ben decided to try and catch up. I decided to try and race Ben. We gained on Bill and almost caught Chris on the last straightaway after leaving the hospital area.  ...Ben is fast.

I felt relatively good right after the warm up, but once everyone got in my shins hurt (the pain was not necessarily more intense than usual, but it was far more unpleasant.) We did 6 strides and I could barely keep up with everybody. We got back and my shins/calves were just shaking like mad. It was kinda scary.

After strides we did fartlek 1,1;2,2;3,2;3,2;2,2;1,1 on the region course. It was really hilly. I decided to go for it and see how I did (wondering a little if I could even make it with my quivering calves.) The first minute on was terrible, but I pushed through, and after the off I was between Voun (spelling??) and Bill. When the next on started I decided that I'd just race Bill until either it was over (or if I died or something else unexpected.) Before today I didn't realize I had such a thing for racing people without telling them.

The general trend was Bill would be ahead; then I would catch him going up a hill, and keep up until I heard "OFF!" Bill would quickly catch up, and I'd keep pace with him knowing that if I lost him on the slow the fast would suck that much more. As we got onto the second half, I started passing Bill and staying ahead on the fast part, and I 'beat' him. Even though I know it wasn't really a race.

What may please me most, though, is that I really didn't notice my shins that much. I still feel like the faster I go the less it hurts (until I stop.) I'm not sure if that makes sense anatomically, but whatever. I did my cool down barefoot because Scott would have told me to, and I may run again tonight. If so, I did 6 this morning.

I ran another 2 miles. One on the track and one barefoot on the grass. I had some weird tension behind my right knee, but it was gone after a half mile and much stretching. Scott's right.

We ran pipeline, the 4 of us came late. We were supposed to run out 2.5 and back, but at about 3 miles I had the pain in my knee from yesterday come back far worse. I was worried that I would hurt myself, so I slowed down to a walk for my first time in xc. I walked for 10 minutes and was feeling a little better, had 1.5 left so I just ran it in. It kinda sucked, but I felt a little better. When I got home my mother/doctor told me I'm getting tendinitis in the tendon that inserts into the back of my knee from my thigh. Solution, run less. So definitely not getting my 45 miles.

Went to liberty. I felt great on the warm up; we went quite fast. It reminded me of Wednesday. It also reminded me of Wednesday because my legs started shaking after a minute or two of not running... less worrisome, but still weird. We then did six strides. Scott is fast. Afterwhich, we did another lap around. Scott, Blake and I were jogging, but they took a detour to visit a tree. I was running when my knee started hurting, so after about .25 of it getting worse, not better, I decided to walk a bit. I found the others on their way out of their detour and we ran in. It was a little unpleasant.  I'll probably rest tomorrow and Sunday from running to see if I can get feeling better so I can run in Sweden.