Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

No running just rest the knee.

No running just rest the knee.

No running just rest the knee.

No running just rest the knee.

AM - 5 easy miles on the BYU indoor track today. First run in a week to test the knee. The knee felt much better but still not 100% for sure. The first mile it was pretty good and then it hurt ffrom 1 to 1.5 and I thought about stopping but then it got a little better so I kept going. From then on it hurt a little of and on but not too bad. So a good sign that it feels a lot betterthan last week. Progress but not as much as I would like. 5 miles in 35:25. I think I will stick to 5 miles a day the rest of this week indoors and see how things feel. If it gets worse at all then it is back to more time off or maybe try a treadmill and see it if it feels better on that.

AM - Did core strength and stretching and then joined Sasha and Jeff for 6 easy miles. The good news is the knee felt a bit better. It hurt a little for the first 1.5-2 miles and then I didn't notice it much after that. The plan is to stick to 6 miles a day this week and see how things progress.

AM - Another 6 easy miles with Sasha. About the same as yesterday knee wise. Some pain for about 2 miles and then much less after that.

AM - Met Sasha and Jeff for 6 easy miles again. The knee was a little more noticeable today and bugged me for 3-4 miles and then started to feel a bit better after that. It is a strange because it hurt in a slightly different area this morning. It was more towards the front of the knee just below the knee cap today versus the outside of the knee joint. Overall the knee feels much better walking up stairs so that is good. Also did core strength and stretching as well.

Am - Another 6 easy miles. Knee hurts but bearable.

AM - 6 miles with Clyde, Sasha and Jeff. Trail was decent so closer to 7:00 pace today. Knee hurts but better than yesterday.

AM - Easy 6 again with Sasha, Jeff and Tyler joined us at first but his ankle was hurting so he headed back to do some cross training. Knee was not so good today but still bearable. A day off tomorrow will do it some good.

AM - easy 6 again.

AM - easy 6 again, knee still not good. Pain has changed and I am not sure that is a good thing. I will just keep it at 6 for the rest of the month through Del Sol and then I am not sure what I will do after that.

AM - Well I was miserably sick for the last four days in bed. I have not beeen that sick in a long time. I have been on a liquid diet since thursday and still am but feeling a lot better. The blessing in disguise is when I ran 6 miles this morning the knee felt better than it has in at least a month. Still not 100% but much better. Pretty busy at work lately so not much blogging and being sick and injured does not help matters.

AM - Easy 6 with Sasha and Josse this morning. The trail was a bit icy and slick but other than that it was a balmy 33'F. The knee felt pretty good again today even a little better than yesterday. So the knee seems to be on the mend, hopefully. Now I just need to shake the last of the sickness. I was still on a mostly soft food diet yesterday but things are feeling better each day.

Easy not feeling good.

AM - 6.1 miles with Josse, Steve, Jeff, and Kory before heading to AZ for Del Sol.

First day of the Del Sol Relay. After sleeping not so good we all headed over to Lybi's house to hang out and wait for our time to depart to the start of the Del Sol Relay. We met up with the rest of the team at the start of the race in Wickenburg, AZ and hung out waiting for the race to start. We started at 6:00pm with 5 other teams which was the last start time. The first teams started at 9:00am. I will let everyone else comment on their specific legs but I was in van #2 with Adam, Kory, Sasha, Jeff and Steve. I was really concerned that I was not going to be able to run anywhere close to my predicted times and was very concerned that I would struggle to run even close to 6:00 pace. Besides the fact that I have not been able to hardly run at all the last month I came down with the flu last weekend and my throat had not recovered and I was feeling pretty trashed overall. I really did not want to let the team down so I was pretty nervous about how my body would respond and perform. So when it was my turn to run at about 9:00pm I was not very excited but I was determined to not let anyone down. So I took the hand off from Adam, who ran very fast, and just tried to relax and tell myslef to run hard and just kept pushing thinking to myself to just push no matter what and at least make it through one leg with a decent time and try and be as close to my predicted time as possible. My first leg was suppossed to be 4 miles with the first 2 fairly flat and the last 2 on a slight uphill. The total distance measured short at 3.85 miles. The toughest part about this leg was teh fact that there was 3 cattle guards and crossing cattle guards at night running sub 6:00 pace is a little scary. My first mile was 5:48 which was 12 seconds ahead of predicted pace so I was happy and although not feeling goo just focused on pushing and trying to stay ahead of pace as long as possible. The 2nd mile was a 5:38 and now I was 34 seconds ahead of pace and glad I had put a cushion before starting the climb. This is where the real climb began and to top it off I turned into a pretty decent headwind. This made things hurt and the 3rd mile was a 6:19 but I was still 15 seconds ahead of predicted and hanging on. The last split was 5:04 for .85 miles which is just under 6:00 pace so I ended up with 22:51 for 3.95 miles and about 15 seconds ahead of predicted pace wise and 1:09 ahead of actual predicted time. I handed off to Kory and jumped back in the van. At this point I was not sure how the rest of the night would go as I was feeling wiped out and my throat was killing me. The knee survived but it was a bit stiff after getting out of the van and walking around and jogging at the next exchange. So my next leg was after midnight so you can read about it on my next days entry.