Fowl Fun Run 2017

I have not been running much.  I've been trying to let my knee heal from my marathon but still continue running a little so I don't lose it all.  The week after my marathon I ran 33 miles (but that was with 26 miles of a marathon since it was on Sunday, so really only 7 miles).  The following week I ran 16 miles, and this week I've run 6.5 and walked a mile and a half.

Saturday I ran the Fowl Fun Run 10k.  It was a last minute decision to run.  I have run it many times.
Well, I thought I had run it several times, but I've actually only run it 2 times, once in 2012 and once in 2015 (the 5k).  Oh well.  I don't run many 10k's, not because I don't want to, I actually like that distance more than the 5k.  Last year when I committed to running a race a month I planned to run more 10k's and then I sprained my ankle and ran 5k's because I couldn't do more than that. 

Anyway, 2015 was my last 10k, the previous one was in 2012, the Fowl Fun Run . . .  My previous PR, from 2015 was 56.37, and I thought that I could easily beat that time this year.  It was a completely uneventful run.  I tend to run too fast in the beginning, and I needed to run at a 9 min mile to get a PR, so I was going to try to stay at that pace.  I failed.  I kept telling myself I needed to slow down.  At mile 2 I decided if I could get my pace to stay around 9 min/mile than in mile 4 I could speed up as fast as I wanted.  I figured that meant I only had 2 miles left and I could run those fast if I wasn't dying.  I ran 8.45, 8.43, 8.46, 8.38, 8.30, 8.34, and the last 0.2 was 7.52.  My overall time was 54.16, which equaled 8.43 min/mile average . . .a new PR. A whole 2+ min faster than my previous 10k time.  =)  And I felt that I could have run faster for the whole thing.  I wouldn't have been able to do the push at the end (the last 0.2 miles) but the overall time would have been faster.  I did not get an age award, I didn't even wait to find out.  I didn't know where I was in the pack, but the last time I got an age award for that race it was just a ribbon, and I don't really care about ribbons.  I was 6th out of 11, the fastest person my age was 47.47, a 7.41 min/mile, no way was I going to beat that.

In 2015 they raffled off a bunch of things, including a mug that I got, but this year they were only raffling off turkeys and pies, and I didn't care about those at all, so I left.

My knee didn't bother me at all.  However, it was pretty sore on Sunday, so much so that I didn't do a "long run" on Sunday.  I was going to run 8 miles, but I didn't.  After Sunday it hasn't hurt much.  I ran on the treadmill at the gym on Tuesday and then yesterday I decided to run outside.

I don't know exactly what I did, but I stepped wrong and the inside of my knee started hurting a lot.  Previously it's been under my kneecap, so this is a new pain, and it hurts to walk, which the other didn't.  I'm pretty upset about it and rather worried.  I HAVE to run the Last Chance Marathon on December 31, I've run 2 half marathons and 1 full marathon as part of the Washington Marathon Series, and in order to get the medal, I have to run either the Seattle half or full marathon next weekend (not going to happen) or the Last Chance in December.  So this mean that I have to rest completely to let it heal so that I don't have to completely restart my training (I don't know if one month is enough time to retrain for a half).

So no long run this weekend.  I don't know if I'll get one next week either.  I guess we'll see how it goes.  Nancy, my sister, and I are planning on walking a Turkey Trot near her house on Thursday, so I guess that will be the test.  I won't run before that.  I may kill someone.  ; )