As Setback, or Maybe Not

One of the things I have really missed in the time I have spent away from running is time on the trail with friends.  Seven years ago I was a regular on the HCTR Wednesday night runs from the Hill of Life.  I spent a couple of hours a week with a great group of runners.  Sometimes on Saturdays, we would spend many more hours together.  So on Sunday, I headed out to Bull Creek to join a group of runners for a no-drop run.  The no-drop part of that is important with as slow as I am moving lately, and yes I did test that by being the back of the pack.

I had a great time.  I caught up with a few old friends.  Met a couple of new ones. And put in some miles on a trail much rockier and hillier than I have tried to run in quite a while.  I also added a few extra miles hiking after the group run had wrapped up.  But while I enjoyed myself, my knees seemed to take issue with the rougher terrain.  In fact, the next day I was in quite a bit of pain.  This patellar tendinitis was the primary cause of my long absence from running.  Ice solved the immediate problem, but I was concerned that I may have set myself back with the effort.  Over the next few days, I rested, took an easy mountain bike ride instead of a run, and rested again. 

This morning, I was at Zilker Park before the sunrise to see if I could handle a few easy miles along the green belt.  My earlier plan had me pushing up to 12 miles this week, but that was now out.  I had handled runs of 8 and 10 miles recently.  Still, if I have tendinitis issues starting back up, pushing myself is a very bad idea. I somehow decided to try for about 7 miles and turn back early if pain became an issue.  There were a couple of times when I could feel some tightness under the knee, but overall I felt very good and had a comfortable run.  Twelve hours later, the knees still feel good.

I'm far from declaring victory, but things are not as bad as I had feared.  I'll still be taking it easy over the next couple of weeks, but I expect I'll be back out Sunday morning, running with friends.

Oh, and I did scare up a huge snake this morning on my run.  It was probably somewhere between 3 and 4 feet long, but it was about as big around as my arm.  I need to check the data from the Garmin to see if there is a change in the heart rate.  Normally I would not expect to, but I got way to close to this big boy before noticing he was there.  Battery in the iPhone was dead or I would have a picture.