MANY VARIABLES

I woke up with an annoying (aren't they all) little pain on the backside of my leg, behind my knee. Being a pig-headed runner that "needs to get my miles in" I didn't let it stop me from getting in my long run. The pain didn't seem to bother me as I ran 18 miles in just over two and a half hours. As I mentioned yesterday, that gave me 88 miles for the week - a new all-time weekly high. A nice way to start the New Year.

While the pain didn't bother me when I ran, I could feel it when I took Bailey for a walk in the afternoon. As with any ache and pain, I'm trying to pinpoint what caused it. There are many variables; obviously there's the high mileage (including 56 miles in the last 4 days), the bump in number of runs for the week (from 7-8 to 10), the quicker pace I ran 3 times this week, the hills and stairs I ran with P2 on Tuesday night, etc. With all these likely variables, I have a strong suspicion that it was caused by slipping on the icy trails earlier this week. At least that's what I hope it is because I think I'll be able to bounce right back after a day off and a few easy days. In any case, it's a good time for a cutback week.

They're still working on the van. It is going to cost more than the treadmill we just bought. Luckily we got the treadmill first, otherwise we might have decided not to buy it. To make matters worse, the garage is not open on the weekend. Since we both work on Mondays we needed to rent a car. And since they're not open on Sunday, we had to rent the car for 3 days, rather than just 1 day. Cha-ching, cha ching...