Oh the Long Weekend...

Oh, I apologize. The long weekend threw me off. I was going to post about hill running (I'll have that up a few Thursdays from now) and I was also going to post about barefoot running, which will be up this Thursday, I promise.

I did it again, folks. I tripped over the sidewalk. The sidewalks on my street are horribly jagged and this is the second time I fell and skinned my knee. Last time, it was Friday the 13th. This time, I can't blame it on the date. I will, however, blame it on the nasty sidewalks. I think they wanted both of my knees to be evenly skinned, but since it was cold and I was wearing long spandex, the other knee wasn't skinned as much. I'm working tirelessly on getting the taste of soap out of the reservoir of my Camelbak so that I can bring water with me wherever, and I don't have to run circles around my neighborhood so I can stop in for water and energy gel breaks. If anyone has any idea on how to actually do this, please let me know. Today, I dropped it in my washing machine with a ton of baking soda and put it on a warm cycle with two rinses. I hope this worked, but I think it still smells soapy.

I did nineteen miles today. Nineteen. I'm super proud. However, it never sounds like nineteen in my head. Whenever I do a long run, the distance I tell myself that I'm running always sounds like it came out of a Charles Dickens novel. I'm running ten-and-nine miles, today. I'm messing with my own head when I do this. Ten miles is easy. Nine also is, obviously, because it's less than ten. I always break down my mileage into smaller chunks so I don't psych myself out. Nineteen miles is far. Ten-and-nine miles is easy.

I'm cramming the protein, of course, although my mother's boyfriend just handed me a rather large vodka tonic, and I suppose I shall have to drink that. I'm definitely going to take another glucosamine before bed because the distance runs mess with my knees. I think that it's more of an IT Band thing, but you can never be too careful. I want to run for the rest of my life and I don't want to have to stop because my knees no longer have cartilage. That's a silly reason to have to stop if I can prevent it now. I think that my multivitamins have a joint support complex in them, as well, so I should be well-covered. I'm going to move my long run this week to Saturday, so if you don't mind, the next progress post will be a day early.

Much Love,

Michaela