The morning weather was AMAZING. Clear with scattered white clouds, cool breeze on a 60 degree temp. Lovely. It didn't take long for me to realize it was HUMID AS HECK though!! How on heck it was 79% humid without a cloud cover is a mystery to me but I was a sweatier mess than usual and that says a LOT.
The first mile was rough as I think my legs forgot how to move on asphalt. And well, that humid thing wasn't much help. But once I hit the first mile or so it went very well through the 4.2 mile mark which was shortly after my turnaround to head home.
I was running on a main road that had no bike lane, and had heavy traffic. This put me on a sidewalk running against oncoming traffic. As I approached an exit from a store, I saw a big green truck waiting to exit into oncoming traffic. I was wearing a BRILLIANT dayglow orange singlet and had assumed he had seen me. As I crossed infront of him he started gunning it to beat traffic. I screamed the F word at the top of my lungs while making a mid-air twist and cruddy landing then dodge out of his way. Even though his window was up, he HEARD my yell and THEN he saw me. He looked apologetic.
But the damage was done. A quarter of a mile from there my knee felt twisted, bruised and sore as heck. The next 3.75 miles was horrid. My prior quarter mile pace averages of between 9:30 and 10:20 suddenly took a nose dive as I had to slog, and race walk, and on occasion stop and stretch. I was so frustrated I wanted to cry. But first, I wanted to finish my run and just get home to ice it.
My average pace when all was said and done (including stopping and walking) was 12:48 for 8.2 miles. Looking back at that I am now not feeling TOO bad about the pace as that is still FASTER than my 3 mile Jingle Bell Race pace. Have I really come THAT far? Wow. I am glad I didn't let myself quit. :)
I went to my PT guy a few hours later. He stretched my legs, massaged them and worked his magic. I love that post-PT feeling. Aaaaaah. Happy legs.
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