I really don't wanna ride the Sweep Bus.

Right, so the Pittsburgh Half marathon is a week and a half away and I am officially freaking out. The fears of getting picked up by the "You're going to slow, we have to reopen the streets" Sweep Bus. I was doing great and training on target until I tripped on the sidewalk (yeah, check out that story here.) The next training day, I was on the last turn of a 2 mile run and a twisted my knee weird and hobbled back home.

I thought it was nothing and a weekend off and I would be fine. Nope. No such luck. No pain while I was talking around, unless I was carrying the Enforcer up the stairs. (An extra 20 lbs on one side does not help with any kind of pain, in case you're curious.) But about half a mile into a run and I was limping. SO, long walks for about a week and then I took another weekend completely off.

I was super bummed. You can ask my sister. She went for a 6 mile run with me that turned into a walk and I was quite frustrated every time I tried to go any faster and was met with shooting pains. I knew I could go faster and farther because I had done it before, but my knee wouldn't cooperate. Before now, I didn't fully understand this state of frustration people would get into when they were forced to do less then their mind had set because of limitations from their body. It has taken me a few weeks to move past the frustration. I realized how much I have come to enjoy running though. Now that I have been forced away from it longer runs. I usually will get up early on Tuesday and Thursday and run a short 2 miles before the Dad goes into work. Those are also the Dad's long days at work and he's not home until around bedtime for the kiddos. Having that half an hour to myself in the morning is what helps me make it through those days. I am so much happier and such a better mom on days I get up and run. The weekends are the same way.

The morning was gorgeous! 

Perfect Drillfield playing weather.
Until the downpour.  

My view while running in Christiansburg. 

This past weekend we were down at Virginia Tech (GO HOKIES) for the spring football game.The game itself ended up getting rained out. Of the couple downpours on Saturday, one of them was right before game time to make them suspend the game (thank you to the kind tailgaters who shared their tent with the kids and me while the Dad got the car) and another about half an hour later. So no game. But we had a really great weekend anyway. On Saturday, I got up and went for a 4.5 mile run. Half of which I walked, but I really wanted to make sure I can stay below the 3.5 hour time limit for the half. For the marathon, you need an average pace of 13:42 minutes per mile to be able to finish and that's what I was pushing for. I would really like about an average of about 13:30/mile though as long as it stays about 16/mile I can finish. I had a little bit of knee pain, but nothing like it was before. And if I keep a faster pace, I had almost no pain. It was the starting and stopping that hurt more. SO I guess that means I just need to push faster next weekend!!

I am glad I have been able to get back out and run outside. I enjoy it so much more then running on a treadmill. I can do about half and hour on the treadmill, but after that I  get really bored really fast.

This weekend is my April run, Marsh Madness in Grasonville, MD. It's a trail run at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center and as long as it doesn't run it is "shore" to be beautiful. Here's to hoping for  no rain and no knee pain!!