I'm back

Richie put it out there. Recovery week is a blur.

Monday. Knees creaking. No stairs please. Flight home. My bed. Early.

Tuesday. Work. Ugh. Looking forward to a massage at 430. Sherlene calls and pushes it to Wednesday. Okay. I'll survive. Knees were sore when I got up but once they were moving the soreness went away.

Wednesday. Tired. Massage. Analysis of the knee problem: glute muscle in right butt cheek was source of foot cramps. All connect to the ITB which is what went wack at Mile 25. Figures.

Thursday. Thought about running in the morning but found rolling over a more desirable option. My chest is slightly congested so I am playing it safe.

Friday. Really tired. Went home at 500 and chilled out, finishing up my MCM recaps for the blog.

Saturday. Had a quiet morning. Went shopping for food while Mrs. T went shopping for clothes. Son C called and invited himself out for lunch and a haircut, on me. That was nice. He then borrowed the car. I went to bed at 8pm.

Sunday. Okay. It's time to run again. The Turkey Trot 5K is on Thanksgiving and I have a half marathon in four weeks; plus the inaugural ING Georgia Marathon in March is not that far off.

I went up to Park Avenue at 700 to meet the running gang. A visitor from Ottawa found us on the internet and joined in. We were 10 and many training for the OUC Half on December 3.

The first steps were an awakening. There was definitely some surplus gunk in the legs to shake loose. After about a mile I felt a surge and took off for about 100 yards. It was like blowing out the carbon on a vintage Jaguar XKE. After some teasing from the group I slowed down and worked my way back and forth among the three sub-groups making friendly conversation and giving my accounting of the MCM.

At the 4 mile water stop I found out everybody was going 10 or more miles so I knew they were going to stay slow and steady. I had committed to myself not to go more than six. When we cranked up again there was a pair of fast BQ girls coming up behind us and I knew they would be passing us. I determined that I was not going to let that happen.

For a mile I pushed myself and stayed ahead of the ladies until my turn off. Thoughts pinged off the roof of my skull about how I was running hard this day to make up for my shortcomings in Washington last Sunday. I was out for redemption.

Once I peeled off I kept going hard until my knees reminded me they'd been plenty abused just a week ago. I lightened up the last half mile and cruised in to the finish. It felt great to finish in a running posture. I plan to do that some more in the weeks ahead.

NYC Marathon. I IM-ed with son T in New York who was watching the NYC Marathon on WNBC TV New York, live. He kept me up on the leaders while I fussed over the ING NY Marathon web site trying to track a buddy. The site was not very cooperative. Did anybody else find the tracking to be faulty?