Friday

It occurred to me to do one of those posts where I go over highlights of the year, or goals/plans for the new year, but really, I think I prefer to keep this blog more acute (if that makes sense?). Blogs that gloss over details, to me, are way less interesting.

I'm not big into New Years Resolutions. I think it's funny when people assume that a year is going to be "GREAT!" but they don't set out a plan to make any real or lasting changes. Nothing changes because a page turned on the calendar.  But any of us can make lasting changes any day we want. We just have to decide.

I set out to do a long run yesterday. Ideally I wanted 20 miles and I felt good to start so thought yep I think I'm good for 20 today. But ~4 miles in my knee started talking to me. By mile 6 it was screaming and I had to make a decision b/c I was still running away from my house at that point... Part of me wanted to stubbornly run though it (because otherwise I felt good), but then I thought that might be a decision I would come to regret, so I turned around. I stopped several times on the way home to stretch, and when I could get my knee to crack/pop it would feel 100x better. I ended up with 13 miles instead of 20, which with the Maui Marathon in ~2 weeks felt like a giant failure. The worst part though was laying on my bed afterward, knee throbbing, thinking UGH I'm fucked. I really thought maybe that's it I wouldn't be able to run again for months. And then of course I was berating myself b/c of the jump in volume I'd put myself through the last 2 months. I have some big running plans for 2016 and the idea of not being able to run b/c I'm an idiot and ran too much just wasn't sitting well at all. I did all the rehab I know to do yesterday (reducing inflammation, massaging/rolling quad) and then spent the last evening of the year with some friends, some alcohol, and watching tons of illegal fireworks, hoping our house wouldn't catch fire.

Maia stayed very close to me all evening. At first I think she was trying to protect me from the bombs outside, but after 3-4 hours of constant loud BOOMING, she was shaking like a leaf. She doesn't normally sleep in bed with us, but we made an exception last night. She even cuddled up close while I was reading Moana a book.

I woke up this morning and my knee was hurting. Figured if it hurt while laying in bed, not moving, that was a bad sign. but then I got up and made it pop/crack, and instantly the pain was completely gone. I waited for it to come back but it never did.

We spent the day at the beach with a bunch of friends. 2016 started off in a picture perfect way. Looking at this I made a spur of the moment call to Mark asking if he wanted to swim. Convincing Mark to ocean swim is about as tough as convincing Maia to run, so we spent ~an hour  in this today and it was quite nice.

I came home and was exhausted, took a late afternoon nap (stayed up way past my bedtime last night and I'm too old for that!) and then had this nagging thought about needing to run. I've been on a bit of a run streak... I'd have to go back in my log to see for sure when it started, but I think it's been at least 2 months now where I've run- at least 1.5 miles- every day. Breaking my streak on New Years Day wasn't appealing, and since my knee had felt perfect all day I didn't really have an excuse. So I peeled myself off the bed and put my run shoes on and interestingly, felt awesome. Knee was fine, which frankly was baffling, though I am not complaining. I did a New Years Day themed run just for fun (16x1' on 30" rest), and 5 miles later walked in the door feeling 100x better than I did when I started. Anyway, cheers to 2016. I think if this year is going to be a "successful" one for me, I'm going to have to be diligent about all that rehab/prehab stuff... rolling, massaging, compressing... all of that.