6 miles +2

I mentioned on Friday that I went for a run at the gym on the treadmill and had no problems with my leg/knee.  I went to bed Friday feeling awful.  I was in bed at 8pm (early for this early bedder, and even worse on a Friday night), I woke up on Saturday feeling a little better but still not great.  I was planning on running 6 miles on Saturday, but with not feeling well and my leg was a little achey so I didn't want to push it.  But I knew that I needed to at least walk 6 miles over the weekend in order to see where I'm at so that I can figure out how I'm going to run (maybe walk) a half marathon on December 31. 

I decided that Sunday, no matter what, I was walking/running 6 miles.  I don't know if 4 weeks is enough to get back to half marathon ready, but I definitely can't afford to wait any longer.  Walking doesn't hurt my knee usually (unless it's already hurting), so I thought I would run a little bit and stop and walk for a bit, and then run again, and so on.  I figured as long as I could keep my knee/leg from hurting I'd be okay.  I decided that even if I ended up walking the majority of 6 miles, I still needed to do it.

I was anxious to go out to run, I was going to wait till after we go grocery shopping, but Chris was sleeping late, so I decided to just go.  I had no idea how long I would be out, but knew I needed to.  I started walking out of the neighborhood, but started running pretty quickly into the "outing."  I was running up a hill on my normal route when I started thinking about the downhill, I almost always start feeling a little bit of a twinge of discomfort on the downhill, so I also decided I would walk any downhill sections of my route. 

I have one major uphill in the first half mile, and then downhill, with another small uphill and downhill in the second half mile.  Then I have a long, gradual uphill till I get to fairly flat land that I do the majority of my short and mid-level runs on. 

I have definitely lost some of my fitness level because the long gradual incline that I run almost every time I run outside felt sooooo long.  I was so winded, and I kept wishing I would either get to the mile marker (no luck) or a downhill (again, no luck).  I pushed through and walked at mile 2 (mile 1 walk was on the second downhill of the run), but by that time I had gotten to the flat part of the run and felt good, so it was a short walk. 

There were some definite times where I felt I wanted to walk just because I was tired, but I didn't.  I kept it to every mile, but I was hyperaware of my leg.  If I had any small twinge of discomfort I was going to stop immediately, I never really did.

Somewhere in mile 4 I realized that I was going to have a steep downhill in the middle of mile 5, so I decided to skip the walk at that mile marker in order to walk downhill when I got to that spot.  In mile 5 I decided I felt great.  I had no leg issues at all, I wasn't winded, and I needed to see how far I could actually run, so I decided to add mileage onto the run.  I ended up running 8 miles, I got home and felt great.  I had no leg problems, and I wasn't dead.  In fact, I think I could have run farther, but I didn't want to push it.  Today I feel fine.  I do not feel any discomfort in my leg and I am not sore, both very good things.  It definitely makes me think that I will be able to actually run a half marathon on the 31st. 

I will say that I have the same discomfort in my knee that I had after my marathon, I keep calling it "runner's knee" in my head, but I really don't know.  But it's not a "bad" pain, one where I know I shouldn't be doing anything.  Anyway, that has reappeared today, but I am okay with that discomfort, the other, the leg/knee pain, was not good.  (I wondered if I had pulled a muscle in the back of my thigh, but I don't know.) 

I almost forgot!  And how could I forget such a huge running milestone!?  I lost a toenail.  I have had a pretty black toenail on my right foot for awhile.  A few weeks ago I painted my toenails a really dark purple to disguise it and haven't really thought about it much since.  Well, on Saturday night I was clipping my toenails and noticed that the black one was moving around weirdly, so I started looking at it more.  And sure enough it was partly detached from my toe.  Of course, me being the picker I am, couldn't just leave it alone, so I started messing with it, and pretty soon I had the tweezers out and was pulling on my toenail.  haha!  (I wish I had emoji's for this.)  Anyway, I pulled it off (no pain).  There is what appears to be another nail underneath, but it's super soft, so I don't know if that qualifies as nail or not. 

Anyway, I was kinda excited about it.  I've never lost a toenail before.  =)  I posted it (of course) on Instagram and Facebook.  I thought it was very funny that all my friends on FB hit that "like button" but not to "like" it, they used the "sad" faced one (if you don't have FB, then I'm sorry, I'm sure you're completely lost).  The only person that hit the actual "like" version of the "like button"  was a fellow runner.  =)