Sunday, Bloody Sunday

With the end of the weekend, I have another 20-miler in the books. I read on Rick Mayo's blog:

Trail Runner's Manifest
If you're not cold you're wearing too many clothes
If you're not thirsty you're carrying too much water
If you're not hungry you're carrying too much food
If you're not bleeding, muddy, and exhausted at the finish line you didn't run hard enough.

I satisfied all of those today, other than the one about being cold. It was in the 50s, with a little sun here and there, so damn near perfect really. John and I ran at Wyco and it was one of the best 20 mile runs I've had. I'm getting better at nutrition and hydration, but I still like to carry the absolute minimum needed to finish my runs. I almost made it through 2 laps without falling in the mud. Almost. In the last mile, I fell down a rocky, wet, and slippery slope cutting up both knees and generally bruising my ego. A little bit of blood, but no harm done.

The last week of training has been good - lots of miles and my first outdoor ride last Tuesday. I managed to pull off an 18 mph average on the hilly road in SMP, so I figured that was good. After this weekend's 40 mile race, I'll be putting in some serious miles on the saddle. Actually, I'm packing up my bike and riding at the airport after work tomorrow. Just a nice and easy 15-20 miles with few hills. I'm supposed to taper, remember.

Unfortunately, my right knees has still been giving me grief. After the first 10 miles today, the downhills were excruciating on my knee. John gave me his only ibuprofen, and that made a world of a difference. Vitamin I, how I love you! I don't like to take meds of any kind and usually limit myself to 1 ibuprofen after a race or cold meds during work hours only. I think this weekend I may have to carry some with. I swear, after the race I'll have my knees checked out. The rice-crispy noise in my right knees has gotten noticeably worse. I'm just glad my doc is a runner so I won't get "running's bad for your knees."

I'm obviously playing with the layout of my blog. I'm not sold on this one yet. Any opinions? I thought it was a little hard to read and feels more cluttered. I thought I'd give it a week. I can't seem to find one I really like.