Back in the saddle

I ran for the first time in two weeks yesterday! I didn't want to go, but once I was running (and listening to my favorite podcast: "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me") I felt really good. I took it easy, just running my normal 2 mile route. It wasn't too hot and my podcast kept me laughing the whole time.

distance: 2 miles
Time: 19minutes 30 seconds (approx)
Per mile: 9.65 minutes/mile

My IT Band

I mentioned earlier that the outside of my knee had been hurting recently, so I decided to take the week off from running. Instead, I used the weights and elliptical at the RB and swam laps in the RB pool. (I tried to use the bike in the RB, but it was broken.)

Despite all of my efforts to rest and heal my knee, it was still hurting significantly on Tuesday night.....then everything changed when I went swimming on Wednesday evening.

I was a little nervous going swimming by myself, and possibly having to share a lane with a faster, stronger swimmer. I was also going to try to swim half a mile (30 lengths) of the pool with little or no resting. I could feel the tenderness of my knee as I swam the freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and side stroke, but the water felt so good. My knee didn't inhibit me at all. And when I got out of the pool my knee felt considerably better. It is actually ridiculous how much swimming healed my knee. (It was like windex on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"...magic!)

While my knee feels considerably better (it doesn't hurt when I walk or go down stairs), I am still going to take it easy this weekend and will probably go swimming once more before I run again.

Hooray!

(Btw, the part of my knee that is sore is called my IT band and many people that I have talked to have injured it at some point in their life. Now, everyday, my IT band is getting stronger. It's wonderful.)

Bridal Veils to Vivian

Saturday morning, Dani and I both got up at the unholy hour of 6:45 a.m. to go on a Red Rock Relay team run up Provo canyon. Geoff, Kevin, Chris, Dani, and I headed up University Ave and got to Bridal Veils Park around 7:30.

It was warmer than it was for our Thursday run/fiasco, but it was still kind of cold. Kevin was nice enough to run with me the whole time, even though his legs are long enough, I'm pretty sure he could have just walked next to me at a comfortable pace and kept up. We went 2.5 ish miles up to Vivian Park, talked to a nice ultra-marathoner who was also out for a morning run, and then headed back down.

It was a good first team run--I got to know Kevin better and learned interesting and cool things about his family.

I don't really know how long it took us, but it was about 5 miles and it took us about an hour (including a five minute breather at the top).

Distance: approx 5 miles

Time: approx 55 minutes

Pace: approx 11 min/mile

Knee update: The outside of my left knee has been giving me a little bit of pain. I talked to my physical therapist friend who told me it was probably a tendon and showed me a little black band to put around my leg to support it. I bought such a band, but my knee still hurt after our run on Saturday. I iced it for a few minutes, and I am planning on low impact cross training and weight training for the first part of this week to strengthen my tendon and let it heal.