Day Seven

Miles: 8
Time: 1:09:45
Pace: 8:43
Splits: 8:18, 8:26, 9:17, 8:40, 8:30, 8:47, 9:09, 8:36

So, I stayed over at my house last night because I had to work until 8 pm, then again at noon, so I figured it would be simplest for me to wake up and run at home with my dad. I got out of bed, checked the weather... and it was 32 degrees. I facepalmed, as I only had a long-sleeved tech shirt, an underarmor tech-cotton t-shirt and shorts. So I borrowed a fleece headband from my dad and we headed out at 8:15.

Surprisingly, I warmed up pretty fast. About a mile or mile-and-a-half in, my hands were warm and I rolled up my sleeves a bit. My legs numbed up from the cold, which was nice. My ears were warm but my cheeks were frozen. It definitely felt like winter running... and I loved it. :)

I think you can tell where the big hill was in this route. Mile 3, you might ask? DING DING DING! My dad dragged me up about a mile and a half of hills and I totally made him walk for about 5-10 seconds with me because my leg felt like it was about to cramp up, it was so tight.

It was nice running around in my general neighborhood again, on a route I already knew. Familiar territory, but we ran in the fancy neighborhoods and that is always a good distraction. We missed a little leg of it, though, and had to make up about half a mile at the end. There were lots of hills, but I got better with them after the first big one. I would much rather run up hills (generally speaking) than down them... much less pain involved in the knee area.

But around 5.5 miles, my left knee just started killing. I could feel that it was swollen all around it (below, outside, above) and it hurt across the top of my kneecap too. Around 6.5 miles, I just wanted to stop... so that mile was pretty slow. I made it home and sat down in the living room to ice it (not that it really needed it, as my legs were still so cold from being outside). Then I took a shower, and my legs feel okay now, just tired from running 8 hilly miles.

This week as SO MUCH BETTER than last week, even with the knee pain. My pace was pretty consistent and I felt so much better through the whole thing. We only stopped once, and that was the 5-10 second walk. I think that pacing under 9:00 is no problem, so hopefully I can keep it up when I get into the really heavy mileage early next year. Out of 10 stars, I would give this one probably... 7.5-8. Without the screaming knee, it would have been really great.