Repeat Performance

Day Five of "time off" and I'm getting a little antsy.

Antsy might be putting it lightly. Driving down Park Rd. yesterday I saw a guy hoofing it on my left, I squinted into the side view mirror to catch his stride thundering down the sidewalk. Guy was moving. And he had the whole midfoot-lean going on too. I pulled up to a stop sign on Queens Road West and there were runners in every angle of my peripheral vision and straight ahead and and and... really? It was a beautiful day and I don't think I could have handled driving down Dilworth without jumping out and joining a pack of runners.

But then I woke up this morning and hopped out of bed to a slightly uncomfortable reminder of why I'm taking this time off. I have to keep in mind the four day break I took in the middle of my toughest last weeks of marathon training. I had been putting in some miles - often pretty quick ones - and everything was running suh-mooth. Then 22 miles went wrong somehow.

I drove over an hour to run a 12.1 mile trail race in Troutman, NC. Got up super early to make sure I wasn't late... had everything ready to roll. I planned it so I would run a 5 mile warmup, the race, and a 5 mile cooldown to get my 22 for the day. Unfortunately when I got there it turned out that the monsoon-esque rains we had had that Tuesday caused the park officials to close the trails. [PAUSE] Silent prayer thanking God I essentially live out of my car and my road shoes were in the backseat. This meant that my planned 22 miles on a soft surface to prevent injury were going to be run on an extremely hilly, paved loop course on the park road.

Life handed me some lemons. But I didn't really have a choice what to make with them. I got on the road and did what needed to be done. My first miles were a decently paced warmup and then I ran the first half of the race really laid back anywhere between 7:15 and 7:20 pace. At the turnaround point I decided I still had over 10 miles to run and a bathroom break was going to be necessary.

Let me remind you, this was a two loop course. Those running the 6 mile race would come around the corner into the chute while everyone in the 12 would make a sharp turn and head back out. As in most races where there are multiple distances, it is not always clear who is running which race. The bathroom happened to be directly beside the finishing chute. You can see where I am going with this. So here I come... pushing the pace veering just outside of the chute and the whole crowd is yelling for me (who they think is winning the race) that the chute is 'that' way. Much to my own humiliation I found myself gesturing wildly at the porta potty and shouting that I was just going to the bathroom. Don't mind me.

With that behind me, I decided it was go time. Started pushing the miles from my comfortable 7:10 marathon pace to 6:45 and then 6:20 and then a little faster and a little faster as I gained on the people who passed me on my potty break.

The cheering section was liking this.

Finally, I had two guys ahead of me and I decided 6:10 was as quick as I safely needed to be going with 7 miles still to go. I hit the last heartbreaker of a hill and finished up - the crowd cheering wildly this time as they knew I was really finishing. My last mile registered a 6:05 on the Garmin. I walked through the chute and turned around... back to the grind. I was in a hurry to get back to the celebration but I had some work yet to do. My legs were starting to burn a bit but mentally I was feeling pretty all together. Some people picking up markers for the course drove beside me for a little while asking me questions. I told them I was doing my longest run before the Thunder Road marathon that was coming up. They were pumped. Told me they were going to look me up in the results. I wonder if they did.

The last 2 miles were somewhat tortuous because I could not get away from the steep grades both up and down. The watch beeped 22 as I rounded the corner into the parking lot and made for the food. I was stuffing my face with a banana and downing two Nesquik's with the way-too-small-to-be-normal straws when a couple women came up.

"You know... if you hadn't gone to the bathroom... you would have beat those guys."

"Yeah, maybe. I just kinda had to go."

They thought that was pretty cool. I did too but I was being humble and trying not to be too geeked out that I just ran 22 miles in 2hr39min on a long run. This would be the workout that sent me the message: you've got this shit.

On the drive home I stopped by the little town of Davidson to get some eats at Toast and then decided to stretch out the legs and walked a few miles out on the trails there. The flooding apparently did not affect THESE trails. Hrmph. I tried to be nonchalant about the ROTC strategy game going on in the woods after I noticed a few camouflaged souls in the bushes staring intently at clipboards. Of course, this awareness came after my "discreet" bathroom break in the woods. Shoot.

The next day my left knee was bothering me but I blew it off as routine soreness from running farther than I had ever run before. My tempo that week was to be 10 miles Marathon Pace and 4 miles "faster." My training partner and I started out at a decent 7:06ish pace and held something around that before dropping the hammer rolling into mile 11. Daylight was winking out halfway through the run and we were going to be finishing in the pitch dark on the greenway. With 3 miles to go I just started running away. Away from every little thing that was on my mind. Every unspoken word. Everything I should and shouldn't have done or said. Running all out, I passed the post that marked my 14th mile and walked it in. O-u-c-h.

I had just PRed in the half marathon. I felt on top of the world.
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And then it all kinda fell apart. The next day it was raining and gross with 20 miles on the calendar. My knee was throbbing and I thought I might just get on the dreadmill and see how far I could go.

I ran four miles and got off. Four. Took a day off. Ran the next day and the pain was getting to the excruciating 8 stage. My boss sent me to our chiropractor friend and we worked something out. I would see them routinely and I would take 4 solid days off and see what happens. This happened to be going on around Thanksgiving - the perfect time for running with family and ingesting more calories than my body knows quite what to do with. I got antsy.

But I waited it out. My first run back was a Sunday run with the crew at Anne Springs. The trail is rocky, rooty, and covered in rock/root-disguising-leaves. Chameleons I tell you. So this was probably a poor choice. My knee felt like it was falling apart 5 minutes in and I pushed on for another 20 before politely excusing myself to go cry alone in the woods. I was so high strung that this was enough to put me over the edge. I ran the three miles back to the car with tears stinging my face - salty, not sweet. I got in the car, laid my head on the steering wheel, and took a deeeeeeeep breath. It was all going to be ok. (But I didn't know it at the time.)

The next morning I hit the greenway and felt terrifically bad after about a 1/4 mile but somehow it started feeling better the more I ran. The clicking in my knee was a little less and after seeing my boss and getting an adjustment that afternoon I thought a few more miles at night would be a good call. Birthday present to myself the next night I ran 5 miles with absolutely no knee pain. It wasn't like magic. The next few days were a little rough and I needed to spend a lot of time concentrating on my gait and not heel striking and doing all the things I was supposed to be doing all along. You know. Like stretching n' stuff. But over the next week - 7 days left on the countdown - I started running relatively pain free. I hadn't done a run over 12 miles in over two weeks so I was getting ready to play it safe on the downhills but I was pretty confident it was going to be all good.

It was go go time. Not go go as in go go girl but go go as in let's get this show on the Thunder Road.