Well I didn't think I'd make it this far....

Today I slept in, which is sadly the first time I have slept in for over a week. So I went running in the late afternoon. More like night. I started at about nine and went out two and back. Boring run. I warmed up as I went along and my pace increased. My stomach felt weird at first and I felt a bit sluggish, but maybe that was the Panda Express talking. Anyway that went away and I felt great for the last three miles. I did my core when I got home and now I'm going to start arm swings with some light weights so I did those. AND I found super awesome spikes for less than what I paid for my food at Panda!! Today was a pretty awesome day. Here is my Garmin link:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/104845319 

Today we met at Sugarhouse Park for day one of Hill Week. We ran one grass loop warm up, then we jogged over to the middle of the grass and stretched while Bill put up the flags to mark our hill. Then after jogging the hill once we started them and ran six with a two minute recovery. I pushed the first two, then backed off the next two, then Bill told me to get up to Ben so I pushed the fifth pretty hard, then I gave it all I had the last one. Then we went over to a small hill by the pond that is on the end of the state course and ran that twice, mainly just to give everyone an idea of what the end of the state course is like. After that we got some water, then did two big grass loops to bring mileage to ten miles. On the end of the second one Ben and I needed more so we ran to the drinking fountain, then a little more around the playground to make it ten. I probably could have pushed the third and fourth hills harder now that I look back. On the cool down I started to feel a small pain in my right knee that just got worse throughout the cool down. Here is my Garmin link:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/104981406 

Today was day two of Hill Week. We met at JCC to run the Dry Creek trail. We were supposed to run out to the small clearing before the downhill where the four mile mark is, then turn around and run the Big (capital B) hill ten times continuously, then just head back. But today when I woke up I still felt some pain in my knee from yesterday. I hoped that when I warmed up it would go away, but it just got worse the more I ran on it. When I got to the turn around point I stretched for a minute, but that just made matters worse. Heading back I had to start and stop a few times before I could tolerate the pain from my knee. I jogged back along the trail, running as fast as I could without bending my knee to the point where it hurt even more. Bill caught up by the time I got to the bottom of the big hill and he told me to only run the hill if it didn't make my knee feel worse. But it is particularly on down and uphills that it hurts more, so I decided not to push my luck and head back. Once I passed the rock pile, I had to walk down the big downhill leading to the bottom trail. I jogged whenever there was a flatter stretch of trail, but after a while even that began hurting too much so I just stopped jogging once I hit six miles I walked the rest of the way. Today was a pretty crappy day. After everyone had finished, Bill massaged my leg, and it seemed to help. I am going to take a 15 minute ice bath right after I finish blogging and I will do core after the ice bath. If my knee feels better towards the end of the day I will try to go on a small run.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/105225622 

Today was our team hike up to Lake Blanche. The way up took FOREVER. Once we got there we ate some snacks and then Bill was ice bathing in the lake so after a little bit I joined him. The water was surprisingly clean. Then a few others joined in. After that everyone wanted to go to the patches of snow to build a snow man. Supposedly it would take ten minutes to get there, but ten minutes into the hike up to the snow it seemed we had barely moved, so I stayed behind and Nels, Maclean, Maggie and I had a jamming sesh. That was super fun. After an eternity the group that went to the snow finally returned from their "ten minute" trip and we all headed back down. On the way down, Maclean noticed some spots along the trail where water flows down the mountain, and we took those as short cuts. That turned out to be super fun. On Garmin connect you can see where we cut out from the trail on the player. Anyway, we finally made it back to the cars and we all just carpooled back down to the park and ride. Going up my knee felt okay, but towards the end of the way up I could start to feel the agitation. Heading back down it killed. For almost the entire way down my knee felt really bad and by the end I couldn't bend it enough to get on the car. When I got home I got off my feet and that made it feel loads better. I am going to ice it later and I will take ibuprofen. The next few days of rest will hopefully be just what I need to recover from that annoying injury and get back to training hard. I'm going to try and stay off my feet as much as possible and I will take ibuprofen for the entire rest period.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/105545066 

Today was Camp Tuttle for Peer Court. My knee had just been getting worse and worse so I talked to Bill and we decided I should take the days I would be at Camp Tuttle off. So no running today. My knee felt better towards the end of the day, although I could feel it get aggravated when ever I walked from the main  lodge to my cabin because it was uphill. Had a fun day at Camp.

Today was the second day of Camp Tuttle so no running again. My knee felt even better than the day before and it felt immensely better than it had during the middle of the week. I hope that it fully recovers by Monday. 

Today I hit the pool in the morning. I had talked to Bill yesterday and he said to do ten minutes warm up, then 10 X 1min on/1 min off, and he didn't specify a cool down but I just did another easy ten minutes. When I got to the gym there was a triathlon going on so it took forever to find parking. I didn't know there was a West Valley City Triathlon. Once I finally got in I did some arm weights and some core exercises first then hit the pool. After my warm up I started the intervals and on the "offs" i would check my pulse. I never got my pulse higher than 90. No matter how hard I tried the "on" it never went much higher than that. I thought I could get my pulse to about 120 but obviously not. I cooled down afterwards and then headed home.

My knee felt good during the workout. It never felt more aggravated. I will massage and ice it later as well as take ibuprofen the rest of the day and hopefully tomorrow I can go on a small run.