Saturday was a nice 14 mile group run from Ft. Snelling to downtown St. Paul and back. That means I finished my cutback week with 50 miles on 6 runs.
Funny story of the run; we stopped at a hotel to use the rest rooms. One of the guys flushed the toilet and dropped his keys at the same time. Luckily he’s a better runner than basketball player and the keys bounced off the rim and landed harmlessly on the floor.
It was also during Saturday’s run when I got to meet one of my boyhood idols, Todd. When I was 13 or 14 I lived in northern Wisconsin. Given that there weren’t that many road races to choose from, we’d basically run everything within an hours drive. Todd lived about an hour from my hometown and he would often show up to the local races and just stomp everyone. At the time, it seemed like he was running 28-minute 10Ks. I don’t remember his exact times, but given that he was a 2:17 marathoner, I’d guess he was running 30-minute 10Ks.
Anyway, it was nice to be able to run with him a little on Saturday. I told Doug, who was running with me and Todd about my hero worshiping and he said it reminded him of a Jack Nicholas story; Jack said, “Everyone used to wish they could golf like me. Now they can.” While I might be able to run with Todd, at least a little bit, it’s not because I’m now running 30-minute 10Ks too.
Sunday I ran 11 miles including 4 miles at 7:10 pace. During that 4-mile stretch I just tried to keep things controlled and comfortably hard.
The knee is “fine.” It’s not hurting at the moment, but it sure sounds like a bowl of Rice Crispies with all the snap, crackle and popping going on every time I stand up. The only thing I can think of – other than running 80+ mpw – is that I started taking Glucosamine about two weeks ago. I don’t know if that’s the cause or not, but I’m going to cut out the Glucosamine and see what happens.
Quote of the day;
“Your body, no matter how you train it, is only capable of standing so much stress, then you have to let it rest.” – Frank Shorter
4 comments:
I love that your knee is "fine...." with quotation marks. Not that I love that it's snapping like rice krispies (LOL!), but just that it sounds like when I ask Matt how his heel (nasty plantar fasciitis) (sp?) is....he always answers, "Fine." I think he REALLY means ""Fine.""
Hope it's REALLY fine soon! :)
Happy New Year Zeke!
You've been throwing down some solid mileage- do you have a race coming up soon? Just wondering what target race you have out on the horizon- I couldn't find any mention of one reading back thru your blog a bit.
I think it's very unlikely that the Glucosamine would have any effect on your knee yet. As I understand it, it only starts working after 2 or 3 months. I'm certainly not a doctor, but from what little I know I would be very surprised if it had any effect (positive or negative) after only a fortnight of use.
Sara, I guess saying "fine" is easier than explaining that it doesn't hurt, but it feels weird.
Mike, there's a half marathon on the 27th that I'll probably run. I run it nearly every year - more as a benchmark to see where my basebuilding is at.
Thomas, yeah my wife said it'd take at least 1 month to "kick in." But since I can't think of anything else (other than running), I'm blaming the Glucosamine - at least for now.
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