My Knee is Painfree, Slower than I Remember

The good news with my running lately is that I’ve been able to run with almost no pain in my knee, probably resulting from the 600mg of Advil coursing through my veins. The bad news is that I seem to be slower. I’m blaming the slowness on the 2 weeks that I took off from running to nurse my injury, and I’m starting to rethink what my marathon goals should be, but that’s for another, more boring post.

Due to the icy paths and sub-freezing temperatures here in Colorado recently I’ve been forced to do some of my runs on the conveyor belt of boredom, which is probably better for my knee anyway. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself as I trundle along like an unclaimed suitcase, endlessly circling the baggage claim carousel.

Thus far in my training, the furthest that I’ve run is 16 miles and while it was a good run, it’s been more than 6 weeks since I went that far. I have two more long runs before the taper starts (18 miles and 20 miles) and the forecast for this weekend is not making things easy. There’s still ice on the paths and tomorrow is going to be 21 degrees with snow flurries. I simply refuse to run 18 miles on a treadmill, you’d have to be clinically insane to try that (looking at you Kristina). A friend suggested I go to a nearby Rec Center that has an indoor track, but the track is only a tenth of a mile which means that I’d have to run 180 laps and I’ll be honest with you, I can’t count that high. Seriously, I have trouble with any kind of math while I’m running. One time I accidentally ran 11 miles instead of 10 because of a miscalculation when adding ‘distance remaining’ to ‘distance already covered.’ I’ve never hated math more than I did that day.

Anyway, the success or failure of my scheduled 18 miler this weekend will be a defining moment in my marathon training, and ‘when a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you.’ That’s a movie quote folks, 5 Half-Fast bonus points in the comments for the first person who can tell me what movie it’s from. 5 Half-Fast bonus points and $1.42 will get you a gallon of gas these days. Bonus points are non-refundable, non-negotiable, have no cash value and may cause a slight itching and burning.

Only 6 shopping days left, almost time for me to get started. Enjoy the weekend!