Distance: 6.2 miles
Time: 1hr 14mins 15sec
Route: Home - Submarine Piers (Pearl Harbor side) - Home
Medical report: Arthritic knees, runner's knee in left knee, recovering from old ankle sprain in right ankle. Doctor recommendation? No running. Period. Stop. Now. If that's not a good option, take 6 weeks off and rehab. Still not good enough? Take Naprosen, rehab on your off days and kiss running goodbye when you're done with the marathon. After chatting with good ol' Sparky, we came to a conclusion. Let's make this marathon count for fun. She's going on vacay for 3 weeks and has been super busy...life happens and sometimes it tell you what to do, rather than the other way around. We decided that we'll just run/walk this bad boy the same way that we started this whole marathoning/running journey...together. Granted, this will be the end of the line for my running days and Sparky has many more ahead of her, but it will be an awesome way to go out.
I woke up before my alarm and surprisingly, the hubs was awake. I threw on the shorts and shirt and told him to go back to sleep (which he promptly did until 30 mins after I got back). I went downstairs, grabbed the tunes and the water bottle and hit the trail. It was still dark, but it was already a beautiful morning. I started out by walking 5 mins to warm up and then I would run 3 minutes and walk 2 minutes. I found a great training schedule for run/walking marathons, so I'm going to give it a go and see how it turns out. I wrapped my ankle with a bandage, so I had a lot of support and it didn't give me any trouble. My knee was feeling it a bit today, but I just kept on trucking. Toward the end of the run, it didn't bug me too much.
I ran over to the Pearl Harbor side and went past the Makalapa Gate. I usually go through that gate onto Kamehameha Hwy when I head to Ford Island. This time, I decided to just stay on base and head to the last gate. I didn't quite reach the Halawa Gate, so maybe next time. It was a quite morning, as far as seeing other runners. It was cool and cloudy, so I think that may have deterred some folks from coming out. When I hit mile 5, the sky opened up and started pouring down ran. I started laughing like a crazy person because it felt awesome.
I made it home and was happy to have finished this in under 1hr 15. For incorporating so much walking, I was really pretty surprised at how well it went. I felt great and I felt like I could have kept on going. I stretched out my knees for awhile (I'm doing it right now as I write this) and it helped immensely throughout the day. Ankle is doing pretty good as well. I'm feeling fairly optimistic about the marathon and the new approach to finishing it. I just have to remember that it's not about time, this time. I am really competitive with myself, so I have to ignore the finishing times for now. It's more important to do this right and finish without killing my legs, rather than do it in a PR.
Let's do this thing! :)
