go slowly

Well that's problematic.

A recent concern with the drastic mileage increase over the past two weeks got me wondering. We seemed to be following a predetermined schedule of the training we should be doing, in regards to days, miles and rests. Only, it's week three of training and rounding out at 30+ miles felt excessive. My right knee would agree. So I took a look at the schedules again, and it seems that we're a little (OK, four months) ahead of ourselves if we plan to follow the two-schedule training plan. Today would have been a rest day, not an 8-miler and we wouldn't attempt 10 miles until December.

I think I'm going to revert to schedule one of the plan. This is good news on my part because certain joints in my body have not been responding incredibly well to some of the runs. As you know, my arthritis started to act up last week, thus prompting me to buy new kicks immediately. The new shoes have eased, not solved the pain. Expect numerous updates on that in the future. Also, my knee has been hurting since I tried to pump out a 4-mile yesterday. I pumped out that 4-mile in solid time, but each step was borderline brutal until my muscles were totally warmed up. I assume that the 10-mile was too much for my knee to take at this point. Not surprised.

So I'm icing my knee and taking another look at the training plan. Most runs top at 4 miles, with some reaching 5. My bones are happier already. And I'm going to start sampling energy bars and/or drinks to see how they affect my performance during longer runs, because it seems like I always run out of energy somewhere around the 4- or 5-mile mark. Please let me know if you have any recommendations.