short day

I saw Dr. Maharam this morning; he was not happy with the condition of my knees. I knew he wouldn't be. These last few weeks without PT have not been good. We decided that insurance or not, I will go back into PT. It's expensive, at $50 a visit, but perhaps my insurance will catch up and get me back to the $12 copay. It's important, though, to keep working on reducing my condition to the point where when I start getting into the half-marathon range for long weekend runs, that those go smoothly and without pain.

It is vitally important that I keep running.

But it is also vitally important that, in order to maintain my interest in running, that the variety of distances and circumstances be present, that I can continue to run by myself, or run races, or whatnot. It is probably time to add some team training into the mix, as well, particularly speed work. But so much of that depends on my confidence in the state of my knees. I'm not afraid of pain, I'm afraid of long-term damage that might keep me from running entirely.

That said, I kept my run short, going only my three-mile route. I should be at a 4-5-4-6 week, but I just couldn't justify doing 4 on the pain I've been feeling the last few days. It was, however, a good run. I didn't go fast, I went at, perhaps, a half-marathon pace and found it to be easy - almost ridiculously so. It was nice to find that I was mentally classifying this run as a warm-up/cool-down run rather than an actual workout. Did I miss a workout? No. Do I feel like I did? Yes.

Well, Friday morning will be an early one. I want to get in five miles and a shower before 6:30, when I have to get on the train to make an early-morning PT appointment. PT is going to feel so good this time!