March 2014 Summary

Running Days - 17
Average Miles per Running Day - 8.4
Vertical Feet - 15,000
Weightlifting Days - 11
Push Ups (YTD) - 107/per day = 9,645 push ups
Beer Challenge (YTD) - 41

A rather frustrating month of Running.  A majority of my runs were done simply to test what my knee could or could not handle.  Followed by lots of icing of my knee tendon and applying a topical NSAID.  None of this was even close to being fun.  Also just shocks me how time consuming all this knee maintenance has become.

However progress was slowly being made.  3 runs a week turned to 5 runs a week by months end.  4 milers around the hood become 10 milers around the hood.

What scared me the most was what running trails would do to my knee.  The up and down would put much more stress on my knee tendon as opposed to the flats around my home.  The doctor who looked at my knee cautioned me on approaching the trails slowsly.  So I eventually took a 3 week brake from trails.  Thankfully the knee responded nicely on my first trip back to the trails.  The last weekend of the month saw almost 6,000 feet of vert over 5 1/2 hours and all was good.

Another positive out of this rehabing is I've seen all those little issues that developed over the winter disappear.  Tight calves, hamstrings, hip flexors.  All that stuff was gone and I felt extremely balance during my runs as my fitness came back around.  

The tendon is still bruised.  Still a bit swollen.  I still notice it with every step.  It'll likely take another month before it's 100%, but it is getting better every day.  And that's all I could ask for at this point.

Lifting Weights was simply a routine this month.  One of maintenance.  While I was in the weight room to work it during my one hour there, I never pushed more weights then needed. Nor did I challenge the legs much as my bruised knee is really restricting what I can do.          

I'm only 49 beers behind in the Beer Challenge.  I would have been like 48 or maybe 47 behind but for some reason I bought a bunch of Belgian Style Beers which slowed down my beer intake.  I also bought a 12 pack of 1554.  Big mistake if I'm trying to mix it up.

(Green is for St Patty's Day - Fresh Squeezed IPA might be the best beer I've had this year)

Looking Forward

I'm finally in a position where I can now push the running miles and vert and I plan on getting after it this month.  I'll still have to watch the knee but I'm not nearly as cautious as I was just a few weeks ago.  The visits to the weight room will drop to no more then 2 times a week at most.  The key here though is getting the legs back into weightlifting shape all while running the miles I put in back in Jan.    

After missing out on Salida (again!), I've been thinking about adding in a race for the spring time.  However when I find one that works, and there are many, I catch myself not at all excited about it.   

But there's still that void of needing to do something.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I don't need some race to hopefully fill that void.  So a few weeks ago I got home and went straight into my box of Trails Illustrated maps and trail books.  I pulled out 5 maps and 3 books detailing Utah around the Colorado Plateau.  So many possibilities.     

I can't wait to get back to Utah at the end of the month for some amazing running!