Justin and I attended a gala for a childrens charity with friends a couple of months ago. They announced that they had a 10K coming up and for some reason I thought I'd give it a try.
I also started attending Barre classes at Pure Barre with a friend of mine, averaging 3-4 times a week. I got a little addicted to going as often as I could. I felt like it was a great cross training activity with all of the running, which was wreaking havoc on my knees.
I was feeling strong and healthy. I was still eating healthy, and even though I wasn't technically losing weight, I was feeling really good.
The week before the 10K I managed a 6.5 and 7 mile run. During the long runs I started having a pain in my foot. I also finally called my doctor to get my knee checked out. I was assuming it would take a while to get into an orthopedic dr. It didn't. I think I saw him 2 days before the race. I let me him know that I was going to run on Saturday regardless of what he told me. Luckily he ruled out any major (surgical) and the xrays showed a pretty good-looking knee. I guess I have issues with my patella pulling to one side, but he gave my a few exercises and stretches to strengthen the muscles. Most of the recommended exercises were ones that we do a lot in the Barre classes, so I'm sure I would have been in worse shape with the increases of my miles if I hadn't been attending those already.
So... the race day came (which happened to be the same day as my mother in laws Multiple Sclerosis 5K walk). I went with a friend, which was a little bit more experienced runner than I am. I knew I could do the miles, so my only goal was to not stop running.
It was cold and windy, but warmed up just enough to make it comfortable a few minutes after we started running. The route was pretty great, little hills and valleys. Every time I'd be going up a small hill I'd want to stop and walk, and then I'd be on the way back down. Around mile 4 the pain in my foot came back with a vengeance, but I kept pushing through. I did the whole thing, and a bit faster than I thought I'd be able to.
Then, I walked over to the Trax station (with a bunch of ice I stole from the water bottle pool in one of my race bags) and iced my foot while I rode to meet my family downtown. I was a little late for the start of the walk, so I walked a REALLY fast mile or so until I met up with them. We finished the 5K and I finally got a shower.
I spent most of Sunday alternating between feeling like I never really need to run again, to spending time on runnersworld.com figuring out how to treat and prevent my foot injury and picking out half marathons. I found one in August.
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