Welcome back, friends. If you missed Part 1 & Part 2 of this little update, you might want to take a skim before continuing on. :)
Last we left off, I was dealing with a wild-out-of-left-field knee injury that took me out of running for five weeks, and had started dealing with it via as much elliptical, spin bike, & swimming as I could psychologically stand. (Which was still only a moderate amount, don't @ me.)
SEPTEMBER
Little by little, my knee did start to heal. I was able to run half a mile, then a whole one, then four in a row. I felt like I was walking such a fine line, trying to balance rest days and cross training with ever-so-gradually inching up the mileage to see if I could even get close to 7.5 and have a hope of finishing 12K. On Monday September 11, I ran seven miles; it gave me just the TEENSIEST little twinge in my knee and so I immediately pulled back, & did only cross training until we got to new Jersey that Friday.
Friends, I ran the race! And you know what? While it wasn't fast (of course I knew it couldn't possibly have been fast), I am still actually really proud of the way I ran it, in that I ran totally by feel, without looking at pace. And given how I felt at the end (ie LIKE DEATH), I feel like I actually nailed the effort releative to my current fitness.
Thankfully we had three other masters women running who (again) ran much, MUCH faster than me and brought home another 3rd place National Champs medal for the team. I ran 8.5 miles total for the day (7.5 race + 1 mile warm up) & had not a single peep from my knee at any point. Friends, I will take that!
- Sun Nov 12 - Clarksburg Half Marathon (ah, memories......)
- Thurs Nov 23 - Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 5K
- Sat Dec 2 - Another local 5K race?? I'll be traveling for work Dec. 6-18 and then for the holidays Dec. 22-29 and don't foresee getting in a lot of training during that time, so it would be nice to have one more chance to race in 2023.
- ** Sun Feb 4 - Kaiser Permanente Half. Old reliable!
- Sat Mar 2 - John Frank 10 Miler. A PA race I've never been able to make before but perhaps 2024 is the year.
- ** Sat April 4 - SacTown 10 Miler. There's a chance I may be out of town, but otherwise I'll plan to run this again.
- Sat Apr 27 - Great Race 4 Miler. Another PA race.
- Sun May 19 - Mile of Truth
- ** ??? Late May/early June ??? Stow Lake Stampede. No official word yet on the date but this is when it's always happened.
And that brings us to now, friends. Incidentally, I wasn't going to run any cross country this year just due to scheduling and being cautious about my knee (hills, footing, etc.), but going into the Garin Park race this past weekend, it was looking like perhaps I was needed, so I went ahead and signed up. Ultimately enough other folks signed up that no one had to rely on my time, but it was actually a fun time and I ended up being really glad that I went. It was only a 5K but *extremely* hilly, so again, I went in without any concerns for time or pace and just tried to run by effort and not walk any of the hills 🤣🤣🤣. I wasn't fast but I think I judged the effort right -- I actually ran negative splits and ABSOLUTELY finished feeling like I'd left it all out there.
So, yeah. I am hopeful that I will be able to stay healthy and gradually increase my fitness, but in the day-to-day, I'm trying to stay focused more on stuff I can control both in terms of training (getting the work done, being consistent, utilizing cross training smartly) and racing (focusing on effort/feel and not pace, working on the mental stuff) rather than the OK I DID A WORKOUT, AM I FAST YET? HOW ABOUT NOW?
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