I left work yesterday, stowed my things in my car, making sure I grabbed my keys and my cell phone (I had had visions of locking my keys in my car which would've locked me out of both my house and my car) and headed out for the run home. One block into it I almost got hit by a car, I'm not used to running on roads with much traffic, the car was making a left onto the street I was crossing, I looked at her and waved her to go ahead but she came to a stop so I figured she was letting me go, as soon as I started in front of her she hit the gas to go herself, from now on I won't go unless the driver waves me on. After that it was pretty uneventful for the first few miles, there was a soft shoulder to run on most of the way which was nice on my feet and although it was a slight uphill incline I felt that I was making pretty good time, though I had told myself I wouldn't check my time until I reached what I thought was the halfway point. The exhaust from the cars was a little stinky at times, though the loudness of them driving by was more disconcerting to me. I covered my ears whenever a big truck went by and an ambulance. My race is being run on a street with traffic (although a slower speed limit I think) so I figure I need to get used to running when there are vehicles around. As I reached my halfway point I checked my time and found that I was right on pace for what I wanted and my 5k time just keeps dropping as I do these longer runs, making me itch to find a 5k around here and really test myself. I'm on a mostly flat stretch for the next couple miles and marvel at myself as I make the turn onto my street and how easy my legs are moving now without any thought as to what I was doing. My pace had picked up a little and I felt good, a feeling that I'm not really getting out of my shorter runs lately for whatever reason. I had about a mile and a half to go from that turn and it was mostly downhill from there, so I was cruising along the shoulder, when all of a sudden I was hitting the ground hard. I picked myself up and brushed off, thankful that I hadn't fallen into the road or traffic and took a few steps. I could feel the palms of my hands stinging a bit and my knee felt funny, pulled up my pant leg and yup my knee was all sorts of bloody, on top of that I had ripped my favorite running pants. <img alt="sad2.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/sad2.gif"> With just under a mile to go I figured I could make it home and so I started running again the stinging fading away as I went. Finally I was running on the bridge over the creek and there was my house, I grabbed the empty trash can by the road and headed for the house where I promptly asked DBF to perform gravel extraction surgery on my knee. Stung like a bitch and my knee is sore today as well as the side of my leg and my hand, but when I mapped it out with the car it was a full 6.5 miles and my finish time made the goal I had in my head for my upcoming race seem totally doable. That realization made the whole thing worth it, now as long as I don't wipe out during the race everything should be good.<br><br>
Tonight is a crosstraining day. With three weeks to go until the race I'm wondering if I should do some speed workouts, or if it wouldn't really make a difference at this point. Either way I should probably mail in that race registration that I've been procrastinating on. Sorry for the long post, I can't post to my blog at work and I want to just cut and paste later.
