“Strengthen your weak knees.” -Hebrews 12:12
Runner’s Knees-they aim to please!
Warning: This will not be a pleasant post, but it’s a necessary one. Last Saturday I was running attempting to reach 20 miles as a test run for the Omaha Marathon next month. My brother had asked me to possibly run the race with him. Haven’t run there since 2006. However, severe knee pain (“runner’s knee”, primarily the right but both of them) unexpectedly prevented me from finishing the 20 miles and I was limited to 18. The pain really started at 10 miles so the Omaha Marathon half is probably out, too. I was forced to slow down and take a lot more walk breaks than expected. My knees told me emphatically: “You are not recovered from your full marathon run last month. You are not running the Omaha Marathon this year.” How could the 22.5 mile run last week go so well and this one so poorly (wearing the same shoes)? What happened to the #RunHAPPY (like last week) from my Brooks Pure Flow 2s??? Maybe I’m running on hard pavement too much like Ryan Hall (Olympic marathoner) and others have warned runners to avoid as much as possible.
So I started spinning like the GPS in your car when you turns the unexpected (“wrong”) direction and the GPS says in an annoying tone: “RECALCULATING!”
RECALCULATING!
I hate that word! Anger, frustration, and very foul mood surfaced!
There are times in life where we have to reassess and reevaluate where we are and make adjustments. As Zig Ziglar put it, FIDO FORGET IT and DRIVE ON! These moments aren’t fun but they are part of life and we have to accept them and try to adjust and move on! Even my brother is not running the Omaha Marathon now either due to a plethora of bunions! So we’re both looking at these signs together!
Some moments in life are exactly like this: NOW WHAT?!?
I’m so close to 200 miles for the month of August (189+), I don’t want to jeopardize that by getting hurt. So I’m reinserting one rest day per week (was streaking on average about 10 days at a time). I’m still attempting to jump over the 200 goal but not by much. I was hoping to run a fall marathon but maybe 3 marathons this year is enough. So for now it’s a lot of short easy runs for me and Gallowalking is back (run/walking as per Jeff Galloway’s recommendations).
Bonus haiku for you which I wrote myself (we have a “Haiku chain game” going on Tribesports–we link the last person’s Haiku line with two of our own–over 3,000 haikus linked so far!) :
“To work out and play, Let go of worries and cares, Run like a cheetah.” 🙂
Run for fun everyone, Jeremy
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