Ironman Louisville Swim 2018

The days before the race, other athletes would ask how many Ironman’s I’d done. I still don’t know how to quickly answer this without explaining I’ve finished one and had to pull out of another during the bike portion because I crashed my bike 4 days before and tried racing unknowingly with a stress fracture in my pelvic. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue. My go to answer became to avoid a direct answer… “I did this race two years ago.”

I never thought I’d do repeat races, at least until I’d experienced a variety of venues. However, Louisville was the most convenient, worked towards my strengths and was late enough in the season that I thought my body would be ready. There was some comfort in knowing the course.

I know better than to expect certain times for the swim because water conditions can play a big role. I was still curious to see how I’d improved in this area at least compared to rest of the field. There were talks that the swim might be cancelled due to the strong currents. They closed the dam the day before, but it wasn’t enough.

The pros got into the water to warm up and the current was stronger than them. The pulled them out of the water and changed the course to only be downstream. This cut the swim from 2.4 miles to 0.9 miles. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but it didn’t really phase me and I rolled with it. I adjusted my swim plan to “SWIM HARD” the whole time. It was going to be a short warmup to a long day.

Temperatures were in the 40s and it had been raining since I woke up. A theme for the day. By the time I made it to the dock my feet were completely numb. I was excited to get into the water, so I could get some feeling back because the water felt warmer than the cold wet pavement. This was probably the most fun I’ve ever had swimming during a race. It felt like chaos and I felt in control. We were told to stay to the outside of all the buoys. The kayakers made sure we swam around the outside of the first one. Then it was a free for all with swimmers on all sides with kayakers just struggling to keep us in a mostly tight straight line while they were trying not to get carried away by the Ohio river.

I could tell I was swimming FAST. We were all swimming fast, but I was passing a lot of swimmers. I wasn’t expecting this since it was a self-seeded start. Maybe they were swimming easier but I was trying to get warmed up and my body primed for the ride. After what felt like only a couple minutes, we were starting to near the exit ramp. The kayakers started turning us but not early enough. I started pulling hard with my right arm to make sure I didn’t get pushed past the ramp. I heard of other swimmers that missed it and struggled for minutes trying to swim upstream only a few yards. I hopped up the stairs and started my run to T1. This was the happiest I’ve ever been post swim by far. I saw Bill and asked my time. He told me, and I was shocked and laughed. It was an excellent way to start the day. I swam 0.9 miles at a 1:00min/100m pace. This is faster than I can swim an all-out 25m sprint in the pool.

0.9mi Swim – 14:20, 5^th AG

The main concern about the race the days before was debating what to wear on the bike. I probably drove Katie bonkers with indecisiveness. She was kind enough to expediate ship me her aero top to go over my tri top. Standing on the docks I can honestly say I still had not decided what I was going to wear. I had shoved extra layers in my bike bag that morning. At some point while running into T1 I made the decision. Put on all the layers. Needless to say, this wasted extra time trying to put on additional layers while wet and cold. I struggled for probably a solid minute with my tri top rolled up over above my boobs with two volunteers trying to help pull it down. Then the tri top. Then my wind jacket. Gloves plus wool socks. Finally made it out of the tent and to my bike. I stared at my bike for a couple seconds convinced someone had messed with my bottle or maybe this wasn’t my bike. I had put a green bottle on my aero bars and this bottle was blue. Oh yea, it changes colors when it’s cold. Then the awkward hobble/run with my bike to the bike start line while struggling to keep my bike upright. Why can’t I run properly without my bike trying to go every direction and falling over?! Seriously, there is so much room for improvement in T1.

T1 – 10:33

The Countdown

I had a recent post-lunch food-coma deep-thought that I spend way too much of my life counting down to the next “big” thing. I’m currently counting down to my trip to Africa. Up until this past weekend I was counting down to my being the matron of honor in my best friend’s wedding. Before that, the big countdown to race day.  

Ironman. It’s the single date on the calendar triathletes think about the most. It’s a strange concept, to put so much emphasis on one day when you spend so many months of work leading up to it. It’s not like counting down to a nice beach vacation where the only prep is buying enough sunscreen and packing a bag the day before. We often become so focused on a goal or a race outcome, that we put too many happiness eggs in one basket. At times I don’t enjoy the day to day aspects of my life enough. I’m always looking forward to the future.

I signed up for Ironman Louisville before I did the M2M half in the spring. I bought the insurance this time, accepting there was a chance my run would give me issues and I’d have to pull out. I had zero expectation while training. No goals. I didn’t broadcast I signed up for another Ironman but I didn’t hide it. When people asked what I was training for, I told them the truth. People kept asking me, did I have a goal, I time I wanted to beat. Nope. I jokingly said my only goals were to get to the start line in one piece and to cross the finish line. After IMNZ, I knew better than to have any expectations about training and especially about the race. Those truthfully were my goals. My third goal was to be mostly happy during the race.

At the beginning of August, I did Lake Logan International to get at least one more race under my belt. I did this same race training for IM Louisville two years ago. I started the race feeling flat mentally. I spent the beginning of the swim thinking “I don’t want to do this” while forcing myself to push hard. I ended up finding two other women swimming the same pace and I latched on. For the first time EVER I properly drafted and swam with a group. It gave me enough mojo to put a solid effort in for the bike portion. Coach Katie gave me an aggressive power goal on the bike. Because the course was hilly and had a few sections of coasting down big hills, my average power numbers didn’t look very good. I spent the whole ride not knowing if I was going to hit this arbitrary power goal, but I tried my hardest. I knew it was a time PR from two years ago, so I was at least happy going into the run. I rode strong and made sure I only passed women, they never passed me.

Unlike my swim and bike plans, the run plan was to take it a little easier. I was still building my run back up and dealing with a handful of issues. I was in good spirits though and the weather was amazing in the 60s. I ran the first 3 uphill miles exactly to my pace plan. During the downhill second half, I picked up my pace, but my HR and effort were still on the easier side. Given it was a “race” I kind of laughed at my effort but I didn’t care. I was content not running hard and happy to cheer on the women passing me. I did force myself to pick it up the last few minutes. I managed to snag 1^st place AG and a nice PR in swim, bike and run compared to 2 years ago. After reviewing my bike file post-race, I did hit my NP goal. It was a great race and a confidence boost… at least at that moment.

This was my third time training for an IM and probably the most I’ve ever struggled with training. The weather seemed unnaturally brutal. I was training in the 80s and 90s with 90+% humidity literally until race week. The summer weather did not let up. I HATE the heat and humidity with a passion. I cannot count the number of times I’d walk into the house drenched in sweat after training, telling my husband we were moving, leaving a trail of sweat drops from the door to the shower. I’m not meant to live on the east coast. I sweat at least twice as much as all my friends. I cannot stay hydrated in those conditions without drinking to the point where I upset my stomach.

Mentally, I struggled with the heat more than normal. Training was going well until it wasn’t. By August I had enough, and my brain was giving up. The heat won. After Lake Logan, I tripped and fell during a run and hurt my knee and shoulder as a result. That gave me a hard time for a few weeks. My long rides and runs started falling apart. I cut them short or gave up on harder efforts and soft pedaled it home. I sat on the side of the road in a little sliver of shade trying to talk myself out of calling an uber home while Katie gave me a pep talk via texts. I lost my confidence every time one of my training days didn’t go well. Mostly this got to me on the run. I finally had a solid day of training with a long ride and a longer run off the bike but by the end my foot was hurting me so badly I was limping while walking. I had to shut training down for a few days and take it easy rest of the week. This meant I skipped my longest run and after cutting my previous long run short because of other pains I’d been battling. My longest run was only 15 miles because of everything going on.

I told myself all of this was fine. I’d done my first IM with only one long run of 16 miles and I was happy with how I raced. I knew my swim was leaps and bounds ahead from 2 years ago. My bike was in a much better place. I had completed 3 rides in the 100-112 mile range so I had confidence in the distance and my race power. But my doubt about the run lingered. It’s always about the run with me.

Going into race weekend, I was the most detached about the race than I’d ever been before. I knew what my race plan was but I didn’t think much about it beyond that. Part of this was intentional. It’s too easy to get sucked into being nervous or over thinking everything. But I think a part of me lost some of my mojo along the way. Still, I was happy to be racing an Ironman after the long road back from IMNZ.

I left Greenville where it still felt like summer. I literally drove through a tropical storm to Louisville. When I arrived it felt like winter. I spent months complaining about the heat. And ironically, the temperatures in Louisville dropped from the highs in the 80s to the highs in the 50s in a matter of 3 days. Bring it on.

Mountains to Main 73.3(ish)

That’s right folks! This is a race report! Some of the most boring, long blog posts to read and yet a very happy one to write. And since it’s been so long since I wrote one of these, I’m going to take way too many words to do it!

Over the last many months, I’ve been quietly, patiently, building my fitness. I didn’t want to make a big fuss. There was a certain amount of social media posting about finally running a whopping 10 miles in one week or breaking 10 miles in one run but nothing that said, I’ve come back, I’m ready to race. I wanted to come back to racing on my terms and without pressure. In reality, the only person putting pressure on me is myself but the mind can turn constant questions about “how is training going and when are you racing?” into pressure. I was also afraid. Afraid my body would fall apart again while trying to build my run up and I wouldn’t be able to race. I didn’t want to have that conversation with people. I didn’t even sign up for the race until 2 weeks before race day.

Once I signed up, I finally let it sink in… I was going to race again! Then came the nerves. It had been so long and I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been doing triathlons for 4 years but despite the amount of training I’ve put in during that time, I have raced surprisingly little. This was only my 3^rd 70.3(ish) which is a fact that often surprised me and my husband who seems convinced I’ve done more. Despite this, I was ready to face what felt like the unknown.

Swim – 1.2 miles, 34:31, 7^th overall female

Unfortunately, this was a point to point race. This meant driving an hour to a lake for the swim but at least it was a nice lake. It was a small local race with less than 200 participants. I was in the last of 4 waves with the female age groupers and some other random categories. The plan was to swim HARD from the start and then settle in. I’ve never started a swim like that so I was apparently a little too excited to start. I accidently jumped the gun and dove in after he counted down to 1 but before the gun went off… oops!

Off we went and I pushed hard to stay in the front with a handful of women. Eventually we blew apart and then most of the swim I was nowhere near anyone other than when passing. It didn’t take long for me to catch up to the blue caps from the previous wave and then some pink caps from the wave before that.

One day I will learn how to hold a harder pace consistently throughout the swim but as always, I let myself slow down. I was still moving well and making good progress though. This was probably the best I’ve ever done staying on course and swimming in straight lines. Given it had been over 2 years since my last 70.3 in the choppy waters of New Orleans, this was a big PR. Almost 9 minutes faster.

T1 – 2:09

Oh transitions… one of my weaknesses. Such a simple task in theory and yet I always waste so much time here doing, I have no idea what. The T1 time doesn’t even look that bad because my wetsuit struggles were included in my swim time. I wasted at least a minute with the help of two volunteers trying to get my wetsuit off. Katie is going to bang her head on the desk if she reads this. I decided to wear a watch during the swim and I can’t get my wetsuit off my arm while wearing the watch. So I had that sleeve half pulled down when I remembered this and started the struggle of trying to take the watch off.  Then I had my watch, goggles and cap in my hands while trying to pull both sleeves off which meant I kept dropping stuff when I got to the volunteers who helped me get it off my legs. Then one leg got stuck on the giant foam timing chip I didn’t make tight enough. It was a struggle. Then I was stupid enough to shove the watch in my jersey pocket to later in T1 waste time putting it on my wrist. I’m banging my own head against the desk just writing this. Probably another reason I shouldn’t wear my watch during the swim.

Bike – 59 miles, 3:19:01, 5^th overall female

Race week included constant checking of weather for several days, watching the chance of rain change between 40 and 80%. Race morning it actually dropped and I was hopeful. I still have very limited experience on my carbon race wheels and zero experience with them in the rain. Katie managed to make me even more worried with warnings about them the night before. On top of that, my brain still struggles with fears of flatting and crashing again. Most of the time I don’t think about it but if I’m descending on a bumpy road it brings back flashbacks of New Zealand and my brain goes a little haywire.

This bike course was certainly a new racing experience for me. Louisville was somewhat hilly but my 70.3s were flat. This race started at the lake and traveled along the foothills of the mountains to downtown Greenville. It was a very hilly course. Perfect, I love hills! My Garmin showed 3100ft, the race info said 3400ft and my friends Garmin showed 4300ft. Whatever it was, it was totally the course for me… expect in the rain on different wheels.

So here is how the bike went for me. I spent the first 10 miles convinced there was something wrong with my wheels. At first, I thought maybe I didn’t tighten my front wheel on straight because I was convinced it felt wrong when I was going around a corner. Then I thought I got a flat on my rear wheel. I even slowed down to ask a guy if I flatted and he reassured me no, the roads are just really bumpy. Eventually I accepted that my wheels were fine and yes the roads were in fact complete shit at times. Then it started raining. Just misting at first and then a pretty solid rain. Overall, I’d say it rained at least half the ride and the roads were wet 95% of the time. Anytime I got over 30mph downhill on one of these bumpy wet roads my brain was going WARNING, WARNING, DO NOT CRASH!! Then I got to a section that was a bit more technically with lovely curvy downhills and my brain was going to explode. I was the biggest chicken with braking waaaay to much and I’m sure I was driving anyone near me absolutely crazy. There were a handful of people flying past me on these downhills and then I’d catch up on the uphill. I didn’t care though, safety first. But this meant I was giving away a lot of free speed with all the coasting and braking I was doing.

I know that seemed like a lot of complaining about the rain and it’s not so I can blame the rain on my performance. This was a slow bike time relative to other races but it was also a longer and challenging course. I knew it would be slow and despite the weather, I did very well compared to the female field. I went into the race with the bike being the leg I wanted to focus on the most. I’ve made good progress on the bike and I wanted to see how hard I could push. Although I felt I handled the conditions to the best of MY ability, I’m still curious to see what it would have been like on a dry day. I love descending and riding on roads with some curves and I felt that the joy of that was taken away and replaced with fear. I wanted to see how deep I could dig in and what kind of power number I could pull off. It wasn’t about the time, it was about my power number. A number no one else sees but myself and Katie. And although I rode 16W higher than NOLA 2 years ago, I know I have better in me.

There are pros and cons of a smaller race. Drafting isn’t an issue but there aren’t as many people around to keep you in the competitive zone. I spent a lot of miles not being able to see anyone in front of me and worrying I missed a turn. Katie told me not to let any females pass me. It’s a little easier to do that when you don’t come across as many females. I let a relay female pass me early on but I was able to catch back up to her 45 miles later. One random little goal I was able to check.

Once I got back Greenville I was a little confused at times where I was supposed to be going. There were cops only at intersections with lights but not stop signs so it meant I couldn’t go flying through. There were no other volunteers on the course directing where to go so I was relying on arrows and signs and hoping I didn’t miss anything. At this point it had stopped raining but the rain meant I had no idea how much I’d been sweating or how warm it really was. I drank almost 4 full bottles and still felt a bit thirsty. But I was thrilled to have no signs of stomach issues after what happened in the last two races. I came down the last big downhill into transition and then got to walk with my bike through nice muddy grass into transition. Bike leg done!

T2 – 2:32

Don’t think I made any stupid decisions or had any struggles here. I was once again, just slow. Moving on.

Run – 13.1 miles, 2:15:19, 18^th overall female

As always, the run was the leg I was most nervous about. I was worried how much riding harder would impact my legs. Although my run training progressed better than I expected, it was still nowhere near where I’d like it to be going into a race. I promise this is the last time I’ll talk about rain! I actually like running in the rain when it’s warm so I was legitimately smiling when it started raining towards the beginning. But then it stopped and the sun started coming out. At this point it was humid. So very, very humid. Living in the Southeast, I spend many months of the year doing any morning runs in 90+% humidity. It was like that but at 1 in the afternoon when it was also getting warmer by the minute. Everyone was struggling with the conditions. The few words people I knew exchanged with me were things like “I’m cramping everywhere” and “it’s getting really warm”. 

 

I tried to be careful not to go sprinting out of transition thinking “this feels great!”. Several times I had to pull back on pace knowing I was going too fast and it would come crashing down on me later. Miles 1 and 2 were right on target around 9:30. The next mile I got a bit slower but I wasn’t surprised so I was ok with that. Next mile the same thing. 

 

Then at mile 4 I started walking. And once you start walking, it becomes easier and easier to allow yourself to walk some more. And more. And more. And more. I wouldn’t walk long but I was walking often. I counted 24 dips in pace on my pace chart from the race. 24! It was run 2 minutes, walk, run 3 minutes, walk. I kept telling myself, run slower and maybe you won’t walk as often and yet I couldn’t stop myself from running in the 9s. My legs were just tired, so very tired. My brain felt fried and I was dehydrated from the conditions of the day. I didn’t even care that I was walking. Sure, there were times where I thought “this is so stupid why do I do this to myself”. But generally, I was happy and laughing at myself at times for walking so often. It was an out and back course you did part of twice. I would give words of encouragement to people I knew and lots of the females. Even the females that went whizzing by me. Good for them for racing it out! I’m super content doing what I’m doing. After I drank my bottle I spent every aid station at times literally standing still while I chugged a coke, drank some water and dumped ice down my shirt. Then it was back to chugging along in my run/walk style for 9 miles. It’s not uncommon of me to make a random time goal while running as a way to keep myself from slowing down. This time it was like, well maybe I can stay under 2:10. Then under 2:15. Then thoughts of, well this is going to be my slowest half marathon ever, which it was. 

 

Towards the last half mile there were some thoughts of “well this is a little ridiculous now, surely you can run 5 straight minutes”. But I made sure to walk one last time until I knew I’d be in view of spectators at the end. Then I picked up the pace for the last 200 yards. In the last 50 yards I suddenly got a full-blown Charlie horse in my left calf and hamstring and wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I pushed myself across the finish line then hobbled around trying to get the softballs in my legs to go away. 

 Overall – 6:13:31, 2^nd age group, 9^th overall female

It’s strange to have such a bad run and to be happy with the race. I can see the confusion on some people’s faces when they ask how it went and I smile while saying the run was horrible. But I had a good swim and I had a good bike despite the brain/rain issues. Most importantly, I got to race! I got to chase joy (with a side of misery at times) for 6 hours. It’s what I’ve been working towards and wanting for so many months. I don’t care about the time on the clock. I care that I finally got to do what I love! Nothing else gives me that high and I’m trying to hold on to that feeling for as long as I can.

Change

If there is one constant in this world, it’s change. My free subscription to Headspace might have run out but it still gives me little nuggets of insight every day. It reminded me of the power of change. “Everything and everyone is constantly changing. This includes ourselves. Change is inevitable, resistance is futile.”

It’s easy to get complacent with our lives. We go to our jobs we assume we’ll still have until we decide to leave on our own accord. We assume our bodies will continue to function as we see fit. We count on our friends and family to be there for us. But the world is out of control. One day everything in your life could be going perfectly, exactly as planned. The next day you and your husband could be hit by a bus which kills him and leaves you paralyzed from the waist down. Goodbye husband, goodbye health, goodbye current life. A little dramatic, but you get my point. Change is inevitable. We cannot fight what we cannot control.

Most would consider me a pessimist or say I need to see a shrink for making comments like this… I expect bad things to happen. My life is by no means perfect. I’ve had a few physical and training setbacks over the last few years. In the grand scheme of things, these would be considered first-world “problems”. A few years ago, I experienced a horrible loss that I still feel today. But otherwise, in my eyes, my life has been good and I’ve been very fortunate. My husband would say this is because we made the most of what we were given in life and have made good decisions. I would agree with this to a certain degree but few bad things have hit us in life, the things out of our control. Unfortunately, one of those things has hit him recently.

So if change is inevitable, why do we always fight it? When we return from an injury, why do we try to return to our former athletic self? We are not the same. Something changed and we are now different. And different does not have to be a bad thing. On the contrary, it can be a very good thing. Change should be something we look for and embrace. Life would be boring and stale without it. I want to look for the next challenge, the next way to improve my life and myself. I want to experience new things, places and people. I don’t want to simply fall into the routine of life without the big earthquakes shaking the living shit out of me and pushing me into a different direction. I will rarely appreciate it in the moment but it makes life interesting and it makes me grow.

Last weekend I went for an hour run. This is a big step for me in the progress to return to “normal” running. Not only was it an hour, but I was allowed to run just above the heartrate cap I’ve been bound by for months. It was exhilarating. My legs were exhausted from all the other training earlier in the weekend but my legs felt free. I was surprised to see the paces I was hitting. I reigned in my overexcitement and calmly told myself my patience was starting to pay off. All I kept thinking was I’m finally starting to see pieces of the runner I used to be. Then it hit me. Why do I want to be the running I was before the crash? I want to be better. I know I can be better.

Stop trying to get back to what we were before this or before that happened. Embrace the changes that have happened, forget what you once were and focus on what you could become. It might not be what you imagined or hoped for but who knows, I might be so much better. Change is inevitable. Resistance is futile. Embrace the change.

Two intentional steps back

I told myself I’d be better about blogging this year and I’ve already failed miserably. It’s hard catching up after so much time has passed. Though it feels like the time has contained more of the same story.

I ended the last post saying I was going to try my first run after a long break. It went fine enough and I was so happy to be running. So I increased from a grand 10 minute run to 15 minute runs. That’s as far as I ever got. A half dozen 15-minute runs. I had new custom orthotics which gave me giant blisters on both my feet. Pretty impressive for such a short run. Had to have them shaved down twice to fix that issue. Most of my runs were on a track to ensure I ran on a flat terrain. Yet the changes weren’t enough and the pain in my knee came back. This brought on another round of feeling depressed and defeated. I got over myself eventually but it took a few days of pouting to get there. I was officially back to not running.

In December I went to Kiawah once again for the half marathon. Although I was registered, I obviously did not race. I knew that would be the case months before the race and made peace with it. Instead I had a fun weekend with over a dozen girls in one house (so much estrogen) and dragged my bike with me so I could still train. I got to cheer on girls setting PRs and racing their first half and full marathons which made my heart happy. I want nothing more than to be out there racing my heart out but it was a good alternative.

End of the year brought traveling back home for Christmas. Like Kiawah, I dragged my bike with me to Virginia so I could train. Now if you know me, you know I do NOT skip training. Sure, it happens occasionally because I’m sick or the gym shut down because we got 1” of snow but very rarely do I skip training because I didn’t feel like training. Something happened over Christmas break though. I just felt… done. I was sick of feeling like I was always fighting and I didn’t know what I was fighting for anymore. I was sick of dragging my bike around everywhere with me so I could continue to kick my ass to be in shape for…what? Still not racing and still no idea when I will race. It’s not like when I first got back into training and I wanted to build up my fitness level. I was in good shape, probably best swimming and biking shape I’d ever been in. But I was lacking the purpose. The drive to keep me going. Within one week I skipped two swims, one strength, one elliptical and cut a ride short.

I told myself after all the skipped training that I just needed to get over myself and push onwards. I ended the year with a 100x100 swim which makes 10K officially my longest swim ever. I was happy to at least end the year on a high note. I got backing to pushing hard in training for about 2 weeks. Then I went away to Asheville for the weekend to celebrate my husband’s 30’s birthday. It was a great relaxing weekend away. Unfortunately, he was sick going into it and after spending a weekend in a tiny cabin together drinking and hiking in below freezing temperatures, I caught it. Back to skipping training because it was the right thing to do. Went back in forth between feeling better and worse for a week before feeling I was good to train full force again. Except I was not good to train mentally.

I was leaving for vacation later that week and I didn’t not want to drag my bike with me on another trip. After thinking long and hard on it, I knew I needed a break. An “off season”. Mostly a break from the volume and intensity of training. But also, a break from the structure of having to do this activity on this day at this intensity. I wanted to wake up in the morning and swim if I felt like swimming or ride in the afternoon is the weather looked nice. Since I made the decision to step back from training, there have been a lot of days with zero training. Several days with only a little easy training. At first I fought the lack of doing anything but now I’m happy with it.

I went to Disney World and Universal with my family and enjoyed not training, getting drunk at Epcot at 11AM and eating giant pink doughnuts at Simpsonville. I walked a crazy amount and my feet hurt every day but I was happy to not be completely idle. The good news is that I did do two runs there. I wanted to do the runs because one location in particular brought back memories. It was where I walked when I was talking to my husband at night on the phone when we just started dating. It was where I did training runs when I was visiting for my first half marathon. I spent that run thinking of how far I’d come since then and everything I’d learned. It was a peaceful run.

The story with my running as of now is this…. I got an MRI of my knee. In layman’s terms, it showed I have scarred tissue most likely from a surgery I had in 2010 and inflammation in several spots. The doctor said surgery is an option but not recommended at this time and I agree, I don’t want surgery. He said I could run and the pain will most likely return but it won’t be doing damage to the knee. So I’m back to short little runs and essentially waiting for the pain to return. In fact, I’m already feeling it a bit but it’s still minimal right now. This isn’t exactly the “answer” I wanted for running but it’s the cards I’ve been dealt. I was told by another orthopedist years ago that I would most likely deal with knee pain my whole life and so here I am. I’ll work with what I’ve got and do what I can to improve the situation but it might not be enough. For now, I’m just happy to be running. Hopefully my mojo returns as I start to slowly get back into a routine. But I'm happily out of my normal routine right now and back in Boulder for run camp (spoiler... with limited running).