Achey and Cranky

Darn my left knee. Why must you be cranky and sore?!! Is it the fact that I moved all of my runs up a day? or maybe you're not happy from the 14 mile run on Saturday? or perhaps you're trying to tell me it's time for new shoes?

Needless to say I'm not extremely happy. I planned my training schedule for Tallahassee very carefully before I signed up to make sure I would be able to get in all of the long runs I would need to be able to do a marathon in 10 weeks. In the back of my head I was worried that something might get achey from the quick ramp up in miles. The problem has almost always been my left knee. I've twisted it three times. Twice before my first marathon, and once last fall. Often the first place I start to notice I need new shoes in either my ankle or knee. Good news: I've finally gotten over 300 miles out of a pair of shoes! That's never happened before. I love, love, love my lynco orthotics. They have a higher arch support then my old superfeet orthotics, and they are saving me. Currently my shoes are at 339 miles. I think there will be a field trip to the Big Peach Running Company for some new shoes. In the mean time it's ice, stretching, and lots of massages with my massage roller...

Sticks & Stones

My neighborhood got sidewalks last winter, which as a runner made me feel safer because I wasn't forced to run on the street amongst the speeding cars. Now, I'm not so excited about them. One section wasn't finished and City of Atlanta workers dumped gravel and all sorts of junk on the unfinished part. Last Wednesday I took several bad steps on that section. Now I have a sore ankle, knee and IT band. Apparently the homeowners with sidewalks on their lots haven't realized that they are in charge of cleaning these wonderful sidewalks. There are many places where the sidewalk can't even be seen because of all of the leaves on the sidewalk. Underneath the leaves are rocks, acorns, and sticks. I keep stepping on them, and it bothers my sore ankle, knee, and IT band. This morning I stayed off the sidewalks and did a workout on the stationary bike. Stationary bike = happy IT band. I followed that up with a 20 minute yoga for runner's workout. My legs are pretty tight. Now it's time to ice the afore mentioned sore knee & IT band. I'm annoyed that I can make it through an entire marathon training program uninjured, but one run with hidden sticks & stones does me in.

Dear Atlanta Homeowners, if you have a sidewalk please clean it! My sore ankle, knee, & IT band thank you in advance.

Dear City of Atlanta, please finish the sidewalks you started a year ago. If you just removed the dirt & gravel you dumped it would be really easy :)

It's beginning to sound like Christmas

This week I started teaching Christmas songs to my violin students. Mostly this is because of a performance coming up that has lots of Christmas music on it. Now, you might think that I have a bit of a bah humbug attitude going on, but remember I'm a musician. I perform for a living. So, all of those nice Christmas concerts you're going to have to have musicians to play those lovely Christmas songs, which requires practicing on our part. It always seems like I play the same songs over and over again this time of year. Add 4 hours of teaching the same Christmas songs over and over 4 days a week, and well, you would feel the same way too. I don't dislike Christmas music, but I've been listening to it for 4 weeks because people have been teaching it or practicing it for a while now. Somehow it never seems to be my favorite Christmas songs. That's okay though. My students love it and they always get really excited when I pull out the Christmas music. So I have swapped Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for Jungle Bells.

Today's run wasn't as good as yesterday's. My knee is being really cranky today, so I cut the run short and headed home and cracked out the ice pack. We'll see how it's doing. I may not run again until Saturday. Honestly, as long as I can run my race next week I'll be happy!