You win some you lose some

Happy Hump Day! Despite an uncertain racing future, I am still super excited to make to Friday and hit the road to spend another race weekend with two of my favorites!


So yesterday after work I had some time and a serious yearning to put my new shoes to good use, so I played it safe and hit the gym for a run on the treadmill. I actually really came to embrace the treadmill and it's functionality over the last year, but for some reason since my marathon I am really loathing the idea of the treadmill, but since I didn't want to be miles from home in the dark if my knee freaked out I decided to keep it safe.

I ran 3 glorious pain free miles on the treadmill before I decided to "quit while you're ahead". I actually feel like I could have probably made it to 5 miles piece of cake, and in hindsight, I kind of wish I had.
3 Miles- 28:59 (9:50,9:40, 9:29)

I kept the run super easy and while I had some tightness in my actual IT band up near my hip, my knee never spoke up, I was thrilled. I knew with a completely different kind of shoe my legs might feel off or tight and they might have a little bit, but to be honest it was the best feeling run I had in over a week so I was quite happy. So there you have it, a win!


Now in hindsight I realize this was probably a pretty dumb move, but I never claimed to be smart. I decided I was going to run again this morning, and my coach ok'ed it as long as I was smart and careful. My original plan was to run this morning, last night's run was kind of impromptu, so I never really thought about moving this run.

The lose: 1.5 miles in to what I had hoped would be an easy 5 miler my knee shut down. after I made a hard turn. I was purposely avoiding uneven or slanted terrain, avoiding hills, but kind of forgot about the planting portion of a hard turn. As soon as I felt that stabbing pain on the outside of my knee I stopped and walked the shortest route home. I am taking off completely the rest of the day and tomorrow. I have a massage (read: torture session) tomorrow and then have been permitted to test the waters on Friday mornig with nothing more than 3 miles, and preferrably on a treadmill.

I bought some KT tape yesterday, I had read really good things about it, and figured tape never hurt anyone. I am taking in to my massage appointment tomorrow, the massage therapist is a Certified Kinesio-Taping practitioner, so I am actually really excited to see what all she has to say. I am kind of at that point now that I hit during the marathon where I have laid out all my options and it is probably time to start re-evaluating my goals. That would certainly be a lot easier if I wasn't already signed up for several races that I am so very excited about, but 2 races now could ruin all of next year and that is just not worth it. A lot of decisions to be made in the next several days.