Thanksgiving Race, 2009

I ran in the Boston Volvo Village 5K today. I would characterize it as real struggle - I really felt out of shape & like I was struggling the whole time. When a guy near me started walking at about the 1 mile mark, I was very tempted to join him.

I finished in 23:37, my 2nd slowest 5K every (on the plus side, it was 1:23 faster than my race last month, my slowest ever). So, I think I need to get some miles into the legs before trying another race.

It was a pretty good turnout for the race - over 1100.

It was 20 years ago that I ran one of my more memorable races, the Feaster Five of 1989, which took place in a blizzard. I recall driving over the race, slipping & sliding on the unplowed roads. I assumed I'd get there and find the race was canceled, but there were several hundred other crazy souls. I recall that it was difficult to decide whether to run in the deep snow, or in the tracks from the few cars that had been on the roads, although the tracks were quite slippery. As I went around a corner onto the last straightaway, I actually slipped & fell pretty hard, but the snow was deep & soft, so no harm done.

Setback?

I was concerned to notice my knee was a little swollen last night. It didn't hurt, but this is the first time I've noted swelling in a while.

I've been very active over the last 4 days while on a mini-vacation in Tennesee. I did a 21 mile backpack over 2 days on moderately demanding terrain, and then did a _little_ trail running yesterday while on a hike.

I had planned to do a treadmill run this am at the hotel, but decided to skip it when the swelling developed.

The last time I had selling was after a 300 km bike ride in June. That was similar to this: no real pain, but it makes me worry that all is not well in there.

Anyway, I'm still planning to try a 5 km race on Thanksgiving, so we'll see how the knee reacts to that.

A Good Run Today

I had a pretty encouraging run today. I did a little 3 mile loop I've been doing recently, and ran it almost 2 minutes faster than I did last week. For whatever reason, I felt decently strong while I was running. I think that's the first time I can say that since starting back this year.

a look back at October

Well, the positive is that October was my highest mileage month since my surgery in April, 2007. But it was only 20 miles, so obviously I'm not too far along on the road to being in shape. I am planning to run a Thanksgiving race (perhaps the Boston Volvo 5K, which I have run before), so I'd like to get those miles a bit higher.

I think I'm going to head out on my bike this am for a ride - I ran yesterday, and I'm kind of avoiding running consecutive days for now.