Luckily the girls were all meeting at my house to start the run! I love it when all I have to do is walk outside my front door! The first 3 miles were torture like always. And it was cold so that didn't help. But once I got warmed up I felt great! We had lots of laughter during this run which makes it go by a lot faster!
Here we are at mile 8 during our stop for water! (Sorry for the blurry pics...that's why I have a two picture rule...which I didn't follow on this day!)
Yes that's Paige...my special friend! Lol!
Surprisingly I felt great during this run! I thought having such a busy weekend was going to make this run super hard but it wasn't that bad. Sure I got tired but I never felt like I wasn't going to make it. I didn't need to walk at the end. It could have been that I was very carbed up for this run. Friday night I ate pizza and Saturday I ate Chinese fried rice and bourbon chicken and pizza again for dinner. So not healthy for me but it really helped me during this long run.
At mile 12 we stopped at Paige's house for water and a bathroom break. And we picked up two other runners that were going to run the last part of the route with us. Here are me and Sally!
We got going again (and it's so hard to get going once you've stopped for a few minutes) and knew we only had 6 miles left. I was feeling great except for tired and achy legs but knew I was going to finish strong! Then around mile 14 my knee started hurting. It felt like a bruise on the inside part of my kneecap. I figured it was just due to the extra mileage and kept running. I was feeling so great I wasn't going to let anything stop me! Plus I am used to having little aches and pains throughout long runs. They usually go away.
At the mile 16 water stop I looked down at my shoe and saw blood. I knew exactly what it was (it's happened to me before). My toenail was too long and was digging into the side of my other toe. Nope I didn't feel any pain at all. But I MUST remember to cut my toenails before these long runs!!!
With only two miles to go I finished strong! But the knee pain lasted until I finished. I felt sooo accomplished with this run! I hated that my knee was hurting!
I went inside and grabbed my Premier Protein shake for recovery while waiting on the last of the girls to come in.
Yes I am not happy with these pictures of me...don't you just LOVE the boob sweat??? Ugh!!!
But I AM happy with my time! I looked back on my past marathon training and I beat my 18 mile run time by 3 minutes!!!
After everyone left I went inside to inspect my poor toes. This is what I found when I took off my shoe.
And here's what it looked like when I took the sock off (skim down really fast if you don't like to see blood!!!). Oh and don't mind my ugly half painted toenails...it's winter time now lol!
It was exactly what I suspected...my toenail was too long and dug into the side of my other toe. Cut your toenails people! Keep them short!!!
I then took an ice bath...hoping it was going to help the knee pain. And I took some Aleve.
I'm really not sure why my knee started hurting. But it hurt ALL day that day. It hurt to walk or bend. It hurt when I touched it...it felt like I had bruised it. Later that night I pulled my pants leg up to look at it and I saw a red area where it hurt. It was a red circle and that's where the bruised feeling was. I'm not sure what caused it. My shoes are good. All I can think of is this...when we were in New Orleans Friday night I fell because I didn't see a step. I felt my ankle twist but didn't feel anything else. I was a little worried about my ankle but it was just sore on Saturday when I woke up. And during the 18 miles it didn't hurt at all. I'm wondering if when I fell I hit my knee too? Is it possible that happened and the bruised feeling didn't occur until Sunday while I was running?
The next day (Monday)...it still hurt although not as bad. I can still feel a tiny bit of the bruising feeling now. But it's better. I've been playing it safe and not running this week. I have 10 miles on the schedule for this weekend but I'm going to see how the knee is. I do not want to risk hurting it any further and not be able to run my marathon. So we will see.
QOTD: Have you ever had a weird pain happen during a run that you've never had before? Did you rest some before you ran again?
