Well, I hadn’t run since Thursday. My ankle remains sore, although the tendon itself is feeling fine - I’m probably doing all sorts of weird “compensations” that are giving me grief. This was the first time I had to run, due to Thanksgiving obligations, and I didn’t get out of the door until about 10am when it had already started to feel pretty darn hot, especially in direct sun. Ah, well. My plan was to run four laps of the neighborhood course - the first one being the shorter 3.25 mile loop, the next three with the extra one mile out and back, which would give me 16 miles total.

I did the first loop with no real difficulty and took a quick powerade break, then headed out for the second one. This time my ankle started to feel a little sore. Not bad, not painful, but definately sore. I took a longer break between the second and third laps to stretch it out, then headed off again. The feeling went away until about 3 miles into the loop, on a slow uphill stretch, but there was no mistaking it once it came back. I slowed down and tried to be very careful about foot placement but kept running. By the time I got home it was still a dull ache, so I decided to keep it simple and called the run there. This left me with 11.75 miles in 1:53:30 for a 9:40 overall pace.

I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get my 16 miler in, but that’s alright. Next weekend I have a 12 mile race, and then a 19 mile run on the 18th. My longest run this season has been about 14 miles, but I think that I’ll be alright with the extra distance as long as I don’t do anything stupid at the Decker 20K.

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