9 Miles and the importance of ice

And by Ice, I mean consistent training. Lauren talked about this in her recent post. She trained consistently for her recent 10 miler and it made ALL the difference. Now, I've been training pretty consistently with the exception of these last 2 weeks: Sister in Law got married, I did my last wedding as a paid wedding planner and then I was on the road for 4 days for work. Running took a back seat, clearly.

So Saturday came around and I got up bright and early, ate some breakfast and headed over to City Stadium.

Here's Jillian and I before the run started:

Matt commented on how much stuff I run with here: Water belt, iPod, headphones. I would prefer to not run with my water but I seriously cannot figure out how people run long distances without it!

And then we were off!

Proof!!

My pace was pretty good and it consistently improved the longer we ran. HOWEVER, my body slowly started to deteriorate the longer we ran. Around mile 6, the outsides of my knees really started to ache. Both of them. In the same spot. I've had knee problems my entire life but this was different - new places, new pain and by the very end, I was limping ever so slightly. It turns out it was my muscles and tendons just getting super tight and strained because I hadn't been running and then I did 9 miles.

When I got home, I got bags of ice and sat our on our deck and just relaxed for a few minutes and drank water. Trying to get up the stairs after that was a nightmare. One step at a time. Matt, god bless him, rubbed my legs down for probably 30 minutes. It hurt so good! I iced again and then was a vegetable most of the afternoon. By morning, most of the soreness was gone.

This weekly, I'll be sticking to my training schedule :)

Next up 10 miles!

H