Today was a local race that a couple of my friends ran last year, and I joined in this time around. Last year I was still recovering from my IT band issues, so five miles was too far for me at the time.
Although I was pretty set on doing this race, a little voice in the back of my head told me I should probably skip it. After last weeks 16 threshold miles, I discovered on Thursday night that my left knee started showing symptoms of runners knee - pain behind the kneecap when weight is applied at about 30 degrees of flexion in the knee, and pain when walking up and down stairs. I woke up Friday morning with it still there, and came to peace with the idea that I'd probably be favoring it for a while until it healed. Then, on Friday afternoon while I was at work, I decided to give something a shot - I'd balance on that leg, and start squatting down just until the point of pain, and see what would happen. I found that as I slowly approached the point of pain, it went away - so I lowered myself ever so slightly more. About 15-20 seconds in, I was past the amount of flexion that resulted in pain - so I stood back and up gave it a test. Oddly enough, there was no pain. It was like inflammation was there, but I was able to squeeze it out like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. "Huh?" is right.
I ended up finding that if I sat or layed down for a period of time, the inflammation would come back - but at least now I had a way to get rid of it that seemed to be more effective than any NSAID. Since I was able to combat it, I decided I'd go ahead with this race - and then take a week off from running (especially with having just acquired the bike trainer) to give it time to heal.
I entered the race figuring there was a pretty fat chance of beating my thanksgiving day pace of 7:03 min/mile - but stranger things have happened. Afterall, that particular race had a big uphill in the beginning, and I went out way too fast. If I was lucky, pacing myself better during this race might result in an extra kick at the end and maybe I could shave a few seconds off.
This time around, I started about 1/3 of the way back - which was much better suited to how I like my starting pace to be (you know - slower than a 5 min/mile pace). About half a mile in, I started having doubts about PR'ing because I felt like I was a little winded, and my HR was already in the 170 zone. But by the time I hit thefirst mile marker, and saw my split was right around the 7 min pace, my thoughts were a bit bouyed. The next couple miles were a little touch and go - periods of sub 7 min/mile pace, periods over - mostly dependant on the hills. Halfway through, I was just about on par - if I could just maintain until mile 4.5, then I could give an extra kick at the end and shave a few seconds off my PR. Unfortunately, since it is an out and back course, a very very gradual overall downhill up to that point became a very gradual uphill. My third mile split at 7:17 pretty much erased any hope of a PR, and at mile four I had to concede that it just wasn't going to happen. Maybe if I really pushed myself I could make it happen - but it'd have to be a pretty monstrous effort - and I wasn't sure I wanted to chance it. I ended up figuring that after 16 miles of threshold miles this past week, I'd leave well enough alone and just be happy with finishing within a minute off.
Garmin results
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