RATS!

Thursday, June 2, 2011:

I ran “marathon pace” today, hoping and almost expecting to run pain-free on the paved trails by running 30 seconds and walking 60. Just 3.6 miles on the park’s paved trails, I was starting to feel almost smug about this temporary solution to the runner’s knee problem. Then, in the last two-tenths of a mile, a pain shot through the right kneecap, leaving me hopping on the left. I walked for a while, and then could run again briefly, but the pain was still there, skulking, threatening to pounce once more.

When the pain first hit, I was running on a trail which was slanted to the right. I’m assuming that the kneecap slid to the left on the knee, “popping” slightly out of its normal groove. That’s how patellofemoral pain syndrome (runner’s knee) works. I don’t know if the trail was slanted when this has happened before, but I do know I’ll do my best to limit right-slanted pavement on the next marathon.

Anyway, the idea was to run this pace to see how the time would actually come out. I don’t think that the pain episode issue changed things much, because it happened so close to the end of the run. Thus I ran 3.6 miles in 43:34, which comes to 12:06, quite a bit better than I had expected. My calculations, based on a presumed running pace of 9:30 min/mi and walking of 15:00, had predicted about 12:36 min/mi. 12:06 would be a 5:17 marathon, and 12:36 would be 5:30. I’d sure love to be running below five hours again, but that won’t happen until I get past the recent rash of minor injuries.

Breakfast after a longer run: Color is good. Most everything is organic. There is oatmeal under there somewhere. The yogurt is plain, organic: