Ridiculous.

I am finally going to run before I go to a job. This has been 400 days in the making. I'm pretty excited. And not just because I spent all day yesterday wishing it was a run day. Actually, my left knee was kinda out of whack yesterday, so I was probably smart to have a rest. Like, when you stand up and you feel like your leg below your knee is not under any type of control from your muscles/tendons/ligaments? That's probably not good.

I wake up. I know I have just shut off my alarm and time is of the essence. First I have to will myself fully awake. I'm excited about the run and I don't want to be late for work...and I have to pee (there's a lot of hydrating going on this time of year)...Wait. It's really dark. I know if my alarm just went off, it's still a good 40 minutes until sunrise, but it is really, really dark. I finally roll over and look at the clock. It's 3 am. I'm a full two hours early, and now wide awake. What kind of monster have I become? I couldn't help thinking of one particularly evil PE teacher I had when I stumbled back to bed from the bathroom. Oh, I hope she never hears about this, because I don't want to give her the pleasure.

Once I appropriately headed out at sunrise, I did the 5 minute walk (.47K/.29mi), then as soon as I started the run, that left knee about floored me. Or sidewalked me, as it were. It had felt pretty good while I was getting ready, so I was disappointed. It hurt so bad that I almost stopped running for fear of doing damage. But I really, really want to run 30 minutes within 2 weeks of starting back up! So I kept running, and I'm assuming based strictly on the strength from the falafel I had for dinner last night, the pain mostly went away.

I was feeling good on the run. Breath, ok. Legs, good. Temperature, perfect. Thirsty, no. Hills, not an issue. I ran through my new neighborhood and headed for the long long long flat stretch back to the main road. I was going for 26 minutes today, and with about 9 to go, I did start to wear down. I had been having the upper stomach/lower chest cramps again, along with just feeling very nauseous. I had a pretty good idea where my finish line was going to be today, and that still seems to be a huge help to keep me from COMPULSIVELY checking the time.

My alarm went off about half a block sooner than I expected, which pretty well confirmed what I was already suspecting - that I was behind on my pace. I definitely did not feel like I was running slow, but I finished my run at 2.96K/1.84mi...and since it was a 26 minute run, I clearly was above a 13 minute mile, which I would like to be well below again.

I walked the 5 minutes home - .45K/.28mi - and got ready for work as quickly as possible. I was only 5 minutes late. I now know I can do this, I just have to streamline a couple of things!

Weather: 74, Sunny, 8mph wind (I don't think there was any wind), 76% humidity, feels like 74
Time: 6am; Walk 5, Run 26, Walk 5
Distance: 3.88K/2.41mi
Elevation: +57.5/-56.6/net .9 ft

Just run: 26:00
Distance: 2.96K/1.84 mi
5K/10K: 45:49/1:36:50
Pace on 26 minutes over 1.84 mi = 14.13 (gross)