Start time: 10/1/11, 7:00am
Location: National Mall, Mt. Vernon Trail
Distance: 10.69 miles
Average pace: 10:16min/mile
Total Miles For October: 10 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 521 miles
Current Shoes: 62 miles

Ben, Jim, Michael, and Steve had their final weekend run before the Chicago Marathon on Saturday, so I joined them for it. It was, in part, a test run to see how the knee would do at the slightly longer distance. Thankfully, all was good. Yay for extra stretching!

The run ended up being a big loop; around the Capitol and down to the Waterfront, then over 14th St Bridge and up the Mt. Vernon Trail along the Potomac, then back over Roosevelt Bridge by the Kennedy Center and past the White House before concluding. We lost Jim and Michael around the Kennedy Center (they were a little ahead and went a different way back) but it was a good run despite the cold and gray sky and the occasional spitting of rain.

(10:23, 10:41, 10:41, 10:02, 10:37, 10:03, 9:51, 10:20, 11:09(?), 9:57, 6:06)

Start time: 9/29/11, 5:45am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 5.3 miles
Average pace: 10:25min/mile
Total Miles For September: 38 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 511 miles
Current Shoes: 52 miles

Thursday followed Tuesday’s success; took the first mile a little slower, stretched a hell of a lot more, no knee problems. So far, so good. Really glad the nasty humidity should be gone for Saturday’s run, though. This week has felt more like swimming than running.

Start time: 9/27/11, 5:45am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 5.34 miles
Average pace: 10:26min/mile
Total Miles For September: 33 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 506 miles
Current Shoes: 47 miles

So. Almost caught up now (I still need to get today’s run data off of my watch when I get home tonight). But! Tuesday’s run was a nice turning point. Got up earlier than normal and did extra stretching before leaving, then extra stretching right before the run. And… no knee pain. I know, this seems like elementary running logic, but it’s good to know that really, really, really stretching a ton is not just fixing it long-term, but short-term as well. Hurrah!

Sept 20-24

Sept 13-17

Start time: 8/16/11, 6:00am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 4.1 miles
Average pace: 10:28min/mile
Total Miles For August: 27 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 457 miles

For the past two months I’ve been a little bad about updating my running log. Finally put them all in yesterday (although I “backdated” all but the triathlon so if you’re reading via an LJ Friends Feed, you didn’t get flooded)… and then failed to actually enter yesterday’s run.

Anyway, I took all of last week off because my left knee has been a little sore for the first half mile of my runs (and on my last 14-miler a week and a half ago, got sore again toward the end of the run). Been stretching, taking it easy, that sort of thing. And then it finally hit me yesterday what the problem may very well be: I’m way overdue to change my shoes. As in, at 128% of the amount run on them before I normally swap them out. Whoops.

(And in the past when I’ve done this, I’ve had some knee soreness.)

So while I had more soreness at the start of the run yesterday, I have my new shoes today. So hopefully by Thursday or Saturday everything should be back to normal?

Start time: 8/6/11, 6:00am
Location: National Mall, Hains Point, Shaw, Logan Circle, Dupont Circle, Washington Circle
Distance: 13.94 miles
Average pace: 10:27min/mile
Total Miles For August: 23 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 453 miles

The last of the two months of entries I’m just getting around the posting! (To spare everyone, I “backdated” all of the entries after the triathlon, to try and avoid flooding LiveJournal feeds. In theory they shouldn’t have shown up.)

This was two 7-milers; the first with Ben, Jim, and Michael; the second one adding on John, Stephanie, and Rich. This was actually not a good run for several reasons. First, my knee started bugging me again at the end of the run, along with my ankle. A very unpleasant final two miles.

And second, at the start of the second 7-miler, we had some of the group make it through a light but other people didn’t. The people in the lead tried to keep pushing on… but it was a new route that only I knew, and I made us wait for them so they weren’t lost half a mile into the course. If it was a course everyone knew I would’ve been “well, we’re all adults” but it didn’t feel right to abandon them. There were definitely some grouchy feelings from a few people for the rest of the run. Oh well.

Anyway, after this run I ended up taking a week off of running to let things rest and hopefully heal…

Start time: 8/4/11, 5:50am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 5.17 miles
Average pace: 10:17min/mile
Total Miles For August: 9 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 439 miles

More knee issues.