Good News and Hopefully Minor Bad News

Starting with the good news, I am feeling stronger than ever on long runs. I used to begin feeling a bit of fatigue about an hour into a run, but now that's more like 1:30 into a run. 14-15 miles isn't too tough. That bodes well for future marathon success, as I've always had pretty extreme positive splits (yeah, yeah, I know other factors are involved...ahem*pacing*ahem). Hopefully by the time I run another marathon I can feel strong through 20 mile training runs. I'm also feeling strong running several days in a row, and the "dead legs" feeling is only there the day after a fast run or really long run. So muscular endurance or whatever it may be called seems improved.

The other good news is I have all but forgotten about my Achilles tendinitis. It's been completely unnoticeable, except this weekend when I banged my heel while an Ikea bed for the guest bedroom. It'll always be in my mind, but the injury seems behind me.

The bad news is that I had to cut short a long run this weekend because my knee really hurt. I was about 14 miles into a 16-18 mile run when the pain became too much to keep running, and I had to walk it on home. Now, I'm pretty sure this pain is just muscular. The pain doesn't come from the joint itself, but from my quad just above the knee. Perhaps its from too much volume/intensity/hills over the past few days. Maybe 4 long runs in 8 days, none of which were particularly easy, was too much. Maybe I didn't allow enough recovery after Friday's 1:30 jot along hilly Magnolia. Even on a snowshoe Sunday I was really happy to be done because my knee was aching on the descent home.

The good news, however, is that today's easy test jog went fine. I made it 40 minutes with only a little odd feeling in the knee. Tomorrow I will try an hour easy in the AM and another hour easy in the PM without ever getting too far from home in case the pain returns.

A takeaway is to keep an eye on my intensity. I did too many runs at a steady pace and not enough easy running.

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Snowshoe photos:

Tebowing on St. Mary's Glacier

Ozzy loved the glacier. He ran back and forth and back and forth the whole way up.

The lake at the base of the glacier. 

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2011 in music:
Great albums: (in no particular order)
Yuck by Yuck
Bon Iver by Bon Iver
Wild Flag by Wild Flag
Father, Song, Holy Ghost by Girls

Honorable mention:
James Blake by James Blake

More time needed because I bought it yesterday:
Days by Real Estate

There were also several albums that received loads of critical acclaim that I'm not thrilled with (see, Tune Yards, Fleet Foxes), albums by bands that previously released amazing records but this year only released okay albums (here's looking at you Radiohead, Panda Bear), albums that I want to buy and expect to be really solid but haven't heard in full yet (burning ears for King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, The Black Keys), and finally albums by new bands that have gotten great reviews but have previously slipped under my radar (por ejemplo, Wye Oak, Civil Wars).