Yay ... but Ouch!

Another 19 miles on my running shoes!

I had my first successful run with the "Ranch View Gang". There were about 25 people - many marathon veterans and a few hopefuls - in the group this morning. We left just after 7:00 from the Panera Bread parking lot for an 8 mile loop, about half of which was on the Cowtown course. Then we did another 6 miles of hill work around the Fort Worth Zoo, TCU, and the surrounding neighborhoods. I was very pleased to be able to keep up with the faster runners for most of the entire 14.25 miles and finished the distance in about 2 hours and 8 minutes at just under a 9:00/mi pace.

Since I wanted to actually do about 20 miles today (as prescribed by my marathon training plan), after a short break, I started out on the Trinity Trails to get in another 6 miles. About a mile into my second run, I started noticing that my right knee was giving off a twinge of pain. I slowed to a jog and mixed in some walking as well, but the pain continued. Not wanting to do further damage, I turned around at about 2 1/2 miles and walked almost the entire way back (once in a while I tried to jog: Hmm, has my knee loosened up? OW OW! Nope ...). Surprisingly, I could "speed walk" with no pain at all and I probably averaged a 13:00/mi pace for the walk. The pain only occurs when I go from bent to straight and put downward force/weight on it.

This afternoon, while doing some shopping, the pain was definitely still there, although I could minimize (and virtually eliminate) it by altering my gait (i.e., don't bend my knee). Anyway, I think it's just a strain or sprain somewhere. I'm going to try to lay off of it for a few days and hope it recovers on its own. I guess I'll be doing a lot of swimming for the early part of next week. It's disappointing because except for the knee, the rest of my legs and body feel fine after doing over 19 miles this morning.

Hoping for the best ...