After a week of no running, with few encouraging signs other than 10 relatively pain-free minutes of jogging on Friday, I decided to stick with my team for the Mt. Si relay over in Snoqualmie. No idea what to expect, and certainly some worry that I'd get a minute into the first leg and need to drop. But why not, right? (Plus one other team member dropped, so I just couldn't do it.)
I'll get right to the good news: I ran my first leg nearly entirely pain-free, other than a brief lock up in the right knee in the first 400m or so, and just cruised. My legs felt like little sled dogs who had been chained up all night and were just yipping and yelping to get to run again. I was that excited once I started moving without pain. Ran a nice six miles on a wide gravel trail, with a little uphill but mainly even, in 38:20. I was holding back a little because the knee pain was in the back of my head, and because I knew there was another leg to go, but for the first time in weeks felt my legs stretch out and got the adrenaline going. Cooled down, got something quick to eat and stretched seriously, still worried the knee problems would resurface. Second leg was a seven-mile stretch continuously uphill. The sun came out at the beginning, a nice little bonus, and I took off on the gravel trail with my legs still in decent shape. A few hundred yards in I saw Dale coming, and slowed down to give him some encouragement (By the way, nice going man! You must have heard me scream "do it!" for the sub-7.) The trail was beautiful once it started moving uphill, looking at trees and the Snoqualmie River, but about 25 minutes in the knee pain returned. It's migrated over nearer the inside part of beneath the kneecap now. If I had been alone I would have stopped out of caution, but that wasn't an option halfway through a relay leg. So I gritted my teeth, slowed down a touch and toughed it out. Kept a decent pace, and the last half-mile I managed to stretch my legs out a bit and finish strong. 48:17 for seven miles, not bad considering, but a little unsettling with the pain returning (and not knowing what continuing on the leg will do later). Stretched a lot and sat there with ice on it for awhile, and so far so good. Hasn't hurt since I got home. So we'll see tomorrow morning. As for the rest of the team and race, we had a fun time and enjoyed the day. Weren't trying to win it, but we ended up sixth in our division and probably top-25 or so overall. I'll check that when results go up. Mt. Si is a pretty painless relay, some nice rural scenery and mountains and trees, and a good atmosphere and energy. Not a huge relay, but I heard 153 teams and almost 100 ultra runners doing the 50k or 50-mile. So a good day overall. supernova glide white -- 13
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