Goal: 7 miles – Reality: 7.09 miles / Soggy and Sore (but Survived!)

Woke up yesterday morning and immediately looked outside. Everything was wet. Very wet. But I couldn’t quite tell just how badly it was still raining. I looked on my phone to check the current weather – 72 degrees and heavy rain. How lovely! I checked my email to make sure the coach hadn’t cancelled our morning run due to any thunderstorms heading our way. No emails had arrived. Looked like we were heading out to get very wet! Honestly, I wasn’t upset at all about the rain. I had been so miserable not being able to do my runs outside all week due to the crazy heat that I was just thrilled to be getting back out on the road – even if that meant I’d be soaked to the core in the process. And believe me, “soaked to the core” didn’t even come close to describing it in the end.

Surprisingly, a good number of people came out in the pouring rain for the Team in Training group run yesterday. It was pretty inspiring! We had 7 miles on the agenda, and I assumed that meant we’d be running closer to 8 miles since the coach ALWAYS maps our runs out to be much longer than they’re supposed to be.

We all headed out in the rain, and of course I immediately stepped straight into a giant puddle. Of course I did! There we were, not even ¼ mile into the run and my right foot was already squishing beneath me. I was really hoping this wasn’t an omen on how the rest of the run would go. About a mile into the run I noticed that the rain was just pouring over the rim of my visor – like my own personal waterfall in front of my eyes, just a lot less scenic than something like Niagara. The rain felt good, though. Surprisingly refreshing.

While running on the hamster wheel (aka the treadmill) on Thursday, I managed to strain something in my left knee. It didn’t start hurting until shortly after the run, and it wasn’t a terrible pain, so I thought I would be OK with the 7 miles on Saturday. Unfortunately, the pain was enough that it was bothering me with every step on Saturday’s run. It wasn’t unbearable pain, and it did get better after I warmed up a bit, but it never went away, and it definitely slowed me down a bit.

Fortunately, despite the pain, I survived the rain drenched 7 miles, running the entire route without a single walk break. And for once, the coach truly had us running 7 miles! I know it sounds crazy, but I found myself slightly disappointed that I didn’t get to run 8 yesterday. Yes, I realize how nuts that sounds and I realize I should probably have my head examined as well as my knee.

So here I sit with ice on my knee again for a 2^nd night (and with running shoes stuffed full of newspaper in an attempt to dry them out) debating how to handle this week’s runs. Hopefully I’ll wake tomorrow and the pain will be gone. I’m guessing that’s unlikely, though, so I’m debating how to modify the training if necessary this week. I’m scheduled for 3 miles tomorrow, but if the pain remains too bad I may just have to give myself a day off tomorrow and jump right into Tuesday’s 4.5 miles if I can. Or maybe just try to do 2 slow, easy miles instead of nothing at all. Or maybe just 1 mile would be better than nothing. But I don’t want to hurt it worse and be out later in the week when the mileage missed is even higher. Ugh, I don’t know. I hate this. I hate that the stupid treadmill has put a kink in my training. I hate that I’m injured at all right now. I hate that I have to even think about modifying my training schedule this week. I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes. Somehow, someway I’ll be back out on the road this week. Just hoping I’m out there pain free (and preferably with dry shoes)!

Keep on running!