RUNNING UPDATE

Just thought I'd post a quick update on my running progress. When I only post once a month it's easy to gloss over the continued mission and struggle to get back to semi-regular running. My goal is to get back to running three times a week... nothing crazy, maybe four or five miles at a time. Just enough to stay in shape and have a baseline of fitness.

One improvement is I don't get super sore every time I run now. I've ran enough to shock my legs back into compliance there. However, I'm still getting weird things after runs. Yesterday I ran three miles and earlier today my right hammy was complaining. Now my right calf is feeling a bit weird. Nothing major, they'll be fine tomorrow, but it would be nice to get past some of this stuff. I kind of remember a bunch of crap like this back when I was first running, so I'm hoping once I'm back in the rhythm my body will not freak out so much.

The IT band thing seems to be improving. After four miles at PRC on Monday it only was feeling a little weird. Not really at all during the run and then afterward just a bit of complaining. The next day on stairs it was a little tender but nothing bad. I didn't feel it at all before or after the three mile run yesterday. So that's good. I seem to be keeping it in check. However, if I were to do anything more than four miles right now I'm not confident it wouldn't act up. Once I can do four miles without a peep from it I can try to go farther, but until then I am going to be cautious.

The other item of note was being able to run 10:20s yesterday for three miles and not have it kill me. It was slightly above "comfortable" pace but I was still able to mostly chat and not feel totally winded. That was pretty encouraging. I'm hoping to get back to a 9:30ish easy conversational pace. Don't want to feel like I'm holding others back. So being able to run three yesterday at a faster clip than I've been running and feeling pretty good during and after was definitely a step forward.

As for the knees... they aren't flaring up. The inflammation seems to be tamped down and the running doesn't seem to move them one way or the other. While they aren't normal knees, I don't feel like they are the main obstacle at the moment... that seems to be this IT band thing. Anyways, I had to reschedule my rheumatology appointment so unfortunately I don't see my doctor again until late August. Fortunately, since the treatment seems to be making progress, I doubt she would have changed anything during the visit.