Where's the Donuts?

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

Mid-morning run in Orlando. The time change threw my body all off, so I didn't get out until 9. (Work meetings didn't start until 2, so I had time.) Went down the row of hotels/conference centers/chain restaurants, went down a block and ran back. Knee felt pretty good, maybe 85 percent if I had to put a number on it. After I ran I was really hungry, but the "supermarket" didn't sell much more than old bananas, cheap wine, Florida trinkets and newspapers. So I bought a banana, newspaper, passed on the cheap wine, and went to the McDonald's next door to get some post-run "nutrition." Muggy outside, which felt pretty good. 

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Pre-dawn run in Orlando, this time my body was acclimated to the time zone and I could wake up. I had invited a guy from my company the night before to join (he mentioned he was an 800 man in college, so I couldn't resist), but he was at the bar at the time and I wasn't certain he'd show. He did, and we headed out in the dark down that concrete hallway of corporate America. At 18 minutes or so we turned around, and he stopped for a bathroom break. I finished up, with a little detour to add some time, then did 5x100 striders on the other side of the hotel. Actually a great road for striders: flat, straight, and zero traffic. Knee was more or less fine, maybe 97 percent. So I might be out of the woods, or it just likes heat. Another muggy morning, but running before the sun comes up helped. Good to get two runs in down there.

The run was followed by 20 hours of meetings/fast food/airport terminals/airplane rides. I'm really, really glad I got out of bed and did it. Annnd, the guy I ran with just might become the new VP at our company, which I had no idea about at the time, so maybe I accidentally made a friend in the right place. 

45:00

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I took two rest days knowing this long one was planned. Didn't want to ramp the miles back up too quickly, especially with the knee pain, while subsiding, still kind of an unknown. The talk this week with Mike was that we had to stick to a 7:30 pace, we even came up with a bet to try and give us a goal.

Didn't happen. Already somewhat warm (50) when we started (Henry joined also) just before dawn at Annapolis, and we were hitting 6:58s the first few miles. We fit one 7:11 or something in, but didn't get a 7:30 until mile 8, which is the hill at Manchester. We all kvetched, but didn't really do anything about it. So the rhythm took over and, although my quads were just hammered for some reason, we stuck with a pace right about 7:00/mile and ran pretty hard as the rain started for the return route (mixed in at least three 6:35s, so this might as well have been a tempo).

Other than the quads I felt good, had two mini Clifs and two salt tablets, which helped. Mostly I'm glad I haven't lost much fitness during those three weeks of low mileage, and that'll give me some confidence with Bloomsday coming quickly. The knee tickled a little here and there, but never materialized into much. So I'll say I'm back.

2:10:31

supernova glide -- 42