Yes, it's been awhile, and my running since the Country Music Marathon has been sporadic. Now that I have been following the "Dr. Sykes Training Plan" of sporadic running, he has taken a more traditional approach of running four times a week and has added some cross-training. :)
My legs, especially the knees, have been killing me. I have had knee pain for over ten years, so the running (on pavement) did not bring it on. I think it has made it more constant, though. I believe years of other sports are the culprit - sliding, diving, cutting - with no type of workout or stretching in the latter years. We would drive somewhere, roll out of the car, and play softball until we lost two games or won the tournament. We would play two games in one night in a local league. And that was it - no practice or anything. In the early years, it was all out all the time even if it was backyard football, without any thought of injury, especially long-term effects. Some nights I just want to cry. Some nights I can't sleep well, because I can't keep my legs still. Some nights I go to bed a little earlier than usual, hoping that I will fall asleep and not feel the pain. Every night lately, I have been taking something for the pain - aspirin, ibuprofen, Aleve, Tylenol. I try to mix things up so not to build up an immune to any one type. Sometimes I will take one thing, and if that doesn't knock it, I'll take something else. I may go six months without any problems. That's why every night for about three weeks has me on edge.
As I said, running has been hit or miss since the CMM on April 28. I ran the Dash to Ditch Lymphoma 5k on June 2. I wasn't feeling it. I ate Papa John's pizza for supper Thursday night, had leftovers for lunch Friday, and the rest of it Friday night. Of course, I had other "junk" - cookies, candy, etc. in between. At least, I did spread a large pizza over three meals. The morning of the 5k my stomach was in knots. It usually is any morning I'm going to a race, though. This morning, however, I felt stuffed, too. I barely had enough room to get down some toast. I began to feel a little better on the drive out to the race. Once the race was on, I felt even better. I took off faster than I should have and ran Mile 1 in 7:19. I wanted to then keep everything under 7:30. That wasn't going to happen! I got realistic and hoped for them all to be under 8:00. That didn't happen either. I think Mile 2 was in like 7:55 and Mile 3 in like 8:05. Plus the tenth-mile. My overall time was 23:45 (7:40 pace). I thought this would be my second (possibly 3rd) best time. I knew one of the HC Fair 5k's was faster, but I wasn't sure if there were any others, so I was surprised to see that this was my 5th best. I don't remember the pain of those other 5k's, but I sure thought I worked hard in this one. I was 2nd of 5 in my 40-44 age group. 14th of 49 males. 17th of 154 overall.
I may have done better if I wasn't so heavy. Since I have been doing the "sporadic plan", I've put on a few pounds. On the Monday after the 5k, my weight hit its highest point since September (that's about 8.5 months!) I even survived the winter without packing on so much!
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