Day 74

Saturday, January 28

I'm a stubborn person. Once I figured out that the knee pain has nothing to do with impact vs non-impact, why am I keeping myself away from impact? Bring it on!

It rained pretty hard during the middle of the week, but New Zealand has had one of the wettest summers this year so I should be prepping myself for a nice 26.2 mile mud run, so I headed out to a little known trail on off Denton HWY (just into Flowermound) which hits the west coast of grapevine lake, when half the trail isn't flooded ;-).

I was really just going out to see if I could run, even if it was a short outing, I need to find the passion again because the last 2 weeks have been less than exciting.

I braced the crap out of my knee. Upper and lower. Kept it warm - normally I just run in shorts, but today I put tights on too. And, I crossed my fingers.

The first trail I took was flooded out within the first 50 yards. Frustration was high, and I almost left, but I spotted another trail that looked as though it was on a little higher ground, so I tried it out.

Muddy, muddy, muddy. But fun! I really enjoyed the mud. It felt like I was 10 again, slopping around out in the field. haha. I was impressed with my shoes, they really held up and kept my feet dry, despite the nasty conditions. It wasn't until the very end, when I splashed water all the way over the top of my shoe, that my foot finally got wet.

I got about 2 1/2 miles out before the river went over the trail and I couldn't get any farther. So, out and back, I got 5 miles in. I felt great throughout. The knee was a little sore, but the pain level didn't change from beginning to end, which was very encouraging. It was a much slower pace than I normally keep, but I was very happy to have finished the 5 miles.

I've been icing 3x a day and I've also decided to take a different approach to my distances since I only have 5 weeks left and seem to be prone to right knee injuries.

New plan of action is as follows:

1. Run every other day, rather than 3 in a row, 1 off, long run, XT, 1 off. This will give my joints/tendons/etc a day to rest and recover. I don't think I have been resting enough, plus the increase of mileage each week was apparently to much for my sad knees to handle.

My goal distance to be able to complete easily is 16 miles. Ideally, I should be completing a 20 mile run here in the next couple weeks, but it's not going to happen. I'm working toward survival now, not beauty.

So, starting today:

Completed: 5
Week Total: 5 out of 24