I hit a MAJOR running milestone yesterday. DH mapped out a 4-mile route in our neighborhood and since I hadn’t run since Friday, I decided yesterday afternoon to just suck it up and do it even though I’d rather be lazy. The route has a lot of hills, some pretty major and I thought for sure it was going to take me like an hour to do the whole thing. Well, I ran it in 45 minutes AND (this is the best part) I ran the ENTIRE thing without stopping to walk…not even once! That is the farthest/longest I’ve ever run without stopping to take a walk break. I’m so excited at my progress! I felt good the entire run… my knee was definitely bothering me but I ran through it. Of course today I am totally paying for it. I’m going to bite the bullet and order the foam roller and hope it works miracles. Everyone that has ITB issues says that it helps a ton… I also found examples of the exercises on YouTube so for $10 I don’t think I can go wrong. I am 99% sure what I have is ITB syndrome based on everything I’ve read, and this is definitely where the pain is:
I told DH I think someone took a lead pipe to my knee while I was sleeping last night! My mom asked if I should go see someone and I think if the foam roller doesn’t work, then I’ll see someone (and rest for two weeks) after the race. Chalk it up to me being young & dumb… I’m afraid if I go see a doctor, he’ll tell me not to run. So I’m just hoping and praying I can do this for another 6 weeks!
So, weekend recap. Friday after work I ran at the gym. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but the treadmill still does a number on me mentally. The minute I push Start, all I can think/wonder about is how long have I run so far? Then I get discouraged at 5 minutes lol. Anyway, I stuck it out for the 30 minutes and then we went out to dinner at Rock Bottom. I got a southwestern chicken salad that was extremely yummy… I think I’m going to try and re-create it this week. It had corn and black beans in it…mmm. Saturday I did the usual errands - grocery shopping, a little cleaning, etc. Took a short nap and then DH and I headed to the mountains for his coworker’s BBQ. This guy has been building a house (by himself) for the past 4 years in the mountains and it’s nearly finished. It is GORGEOUS…just simply gorgeous. We were there for 3 or 4 hours and it rained almost the entire time… lol. Oh, also, big mistake - DH and I thought they’d be BBQing at 2:00 when we got there so we didn’t eat lunch. They didn’t start cooking until after 5! So I was STARVING and essentially there was a chip and french onion dip catastrophe. I think I was responsible for half of the chip bag being gone. Ugh. So then I had a hot dog and that was about it… we left soon after that, got back home around 6:15 only to turn around and go back out shopping again for a ceiling fan, paint for the bathroom and a memory card for my new camera. THEN WE WENT TO DAIRY QUEEN. Enough said.
Sunday was much better eating-wise. I braised some turkey shanks and ended up making a turkey stew/soup with carrots, peas, corn, okra and spinach. It was alright - I’ve made better soups. DH started stripping the linoleum from our guest bathroom so we will paint tonight and he’ll start tiling tomorrow. We picked out a deep green for the paint and I think it’s going to turn out really nice.
Today I need to rest, but it’s hard. I managed to maintain on the scale over the weekend somehow but it kills me to not be able to exercise every day. I’m not even sure I can do the elliptical or cross trainer at the gym because I want to minimize impact on my knee as much as possible. ALSO! I found a running club! They meet every Tuesday at Jack Quinn’s (Irish bar) downtown and run 3.4 miles. If you go for 10 times, they’ll give you a free t-shirt LOL. It sounds like so much fun, there are 800 (yes, 800!) people that run every Tuesday. So I definitely want to rest up for tomorrow. This is when having a YMCA membership would come in handy…swimming would be perfect for these days.
My head hurts. Mondays suck. But omg I ran for 45 minutes!!! 
