Easy day - Race day - Long run day

On most days my knee surgeries seem like distant memories.  This past Thursday was an exception when my right knee decided to make it's dis-satisfaction known in the form of mildly painful swelling.  My surgery for a torn lateral meniscus was in 2006; prior to that I also had lyme arthritis in 2001.  Ever since those 2 events my right knee has always been more sensitive to overuse and in need of TLC (strength, form rolling, the stick & other exercises).  Never one to second guess a talkative knee I took Thursday completely off from training, iced the heck out of my knee, foam rolled more than usual and took a little ibuprofen.

In the interest of coming back easy I planned for only one workout on Friday - a very easy 26 mile road bike ride.  By late afternoon my knee continued to feel better so I changed up the plan and ran a very slow 4 miles.  Had this been mid-week I might have stuck with just the bike ride but on Saturday I had a 5k running race and wanted to see how my knee felt running prior to toeing the starting line.

Waking up Saturday my knee felt great - all systems go - now I could concentrate on racing.  The Pacific THERx 5k 4play was the 5th race in the USATF-Pacific Association's road racing grand prix and my 2nd 5k race of 2012.  I had two goals for the race - win the masters (40+) and run under 16 minutes.  My previous best this year was a 16:15, 3 weeks ago on a flatter course at the Zippy 5k.  Sub 16 might have been aggressive but hey, it's good to have goals.

Me and former USMRT team member Christine Lundy

In the end I only accomplished one of my goals - win the masters - and crossed the line in 16:08.  My Garmin data can be found on Strava here.  In hindsight I felt like I was going too easy following Jaime Heilpern (40+ master) for the 1st half of the race and left a few seconds on the table there.  I also ran too defensively in the final 1/2 mile and didn't suffer enough for fear of blowing up and loosing to Jaime.  That said, I was happy to be 7 seconds faster than Zippy on a course with 4x the vertical climbing & descending.  Perhaps the same effort on the Zippy course could have been a sub 16.  Complete race results are here.  

Today (Sunday) my knee continues to feel good so I capped off the weekend with a flat 12 mile run along the Bay Trail.  Weekly totals: 55 running miles (2100' climbing), 66 cycling miles (1600' climbing).  Not a ton of miles but with a another track workout done and race, I'm calling it a successful week.