Had an unplanned day off this weekend. My apartment's a duplex with a tight, spiral staircase. Friday night, I became rather intimately familiar with about half the steps after my sock clad feet learned why friction is useful, and my ass, knee and shoulder learned exactly how hard wooden steps and an iron railing can be. So, rather than doing the 20 mile Palisades Run with the Flyers on Saturday, I was instead (when I woke up) trying to just straighten my leg without feeling like an ice-pick was rooting around in my left knee, and (later in the day) trying to figure out just exactly how much weight I could put on my left knee before cringes were induced. Ugh.
After taking it easy, by Saturday night, the knee felt solid enough for normal walking around and, when I woke on Sunday it'd only re-stiffened a little. So, I decided to plan to run for a couple hours and see what happened. If the knee was a problem, it's fortunately never far to the subway and I could bag it. Well, let me tell you, despite some stiffness in the early miles, and some soreness on the downhill side of the Williamsburg Bridge, it held up well and I managed to get in 18.25 miles in 2.5 hours. Did a little exploring too, since I was so bummed about not getting to run across the GW Bridge.
(If you haven't noticed from my routes all over New York, exploring is one of my favorite parts of marathon training.) Cut up the Upper East Side's East River Promenade to Randall's Isle, an island in the East River between Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx that I'd never been to before. Randall's has a lot of park land, which would likely be quite bucolic if it weren't dominated by the Tri-Borough Bridges. Sunday was a beautifully cool, and sunny day, although I could have done without the north-wind beating back at me the whole way up the East River. The image is of Boreas, the North-Wind, abducting Oreithya from a red-figure oinoche on display at the Louvre. ("Rape of Oreithyia by Boreas," by the Salting Painter, ca. 360 BC)
I'd thought to perhaps move the 5 miler I missed over the weekend to Monday morning, but after my long run the knee stiffened up again. So, I've decided another day off is probably for the best. Then, hopefully things can proceed normally beginning tomorrow. I think another day of Tylenol will take care of this problem, but I have to admit to being really t.o.'d Saturday morning when I thought my marathon was going to be derailed by my Friday choice of work socks!
Week in Review
| Monday | Rest | -- | -- |
| Tuesday | 6.1 miles | 49:20 | 8:05/mile |
| Wednesday | 11.3 miles | 1:31:06 | 8:06/mile |
| Thursday | 12.15 miles | 1:39:30 | 8:11/mile |
| Friday | Rest | -- | -- |
| Saturday | Rest | -- | -- |
| Sunday | 18.25 miles | 2:30:00 | 8:13/mile |
| Total | 47.75 Miles | -- | -- |
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