365 days later: an Oscar marathon

On the first anniversary of my knee and meniscus tear, I have to admit that I did savor each and every step of a casual and slow 10K training run. Beyond appreciating the blessing of being able to run almost pain free, my focus was to just enjoy and not mess up! To be transparent, on Friday evening, after a stressful day and week at work, I had indulged my first 20K in the neighborhood since the injury. I was so used to not go out for less than 15K, it had been a while since I ran 4 of my local laps. These were not fast, but still progressing on the right track.

We say "time flies" but that year has been particularly painful and annoying. At the opposite of all the excitement I had built around getting into a new age group... The first 4 months have been filled with the anxiety of not understanding what the damage was after the internal snap in my left knee. Then a minor surgery to get a few pieces of meniscus out through an arthroscopy by the team which had fixed Djokovic's knee a week later, to much success. In Paris. Then 3 months of additional rest and recovery. According to the surgeon the pain had supposed to disappear but the first few weeks were completely demoralizing. While I could bike or row without pain, I turned back after 300 to 500 yards in my first attempts of running. While the pain in the knee decreased as I was able to log more miles in October, I started realizing how much muscle, strength and endurance I had lost in my glutes in particular. Races after races, training runs after training runs, I finally logged a few marathons at the track in the 3:15 range.

Now, this weekend was for a much different marathon: AMC was running a pre-Oscar marathon on Saturday: 4 movies in 13 hours, one of my birthday gifts! We watched Wicked and The Brutalist in the afternoon, missed A Complete Unknown for a dinner with friends in Los Altos, then I drove back to Saratoga to see Dune: Part Two. Until 1 am... For a change from ultra running, kind of ultra movie-ing. A proof that you can run a marathon from your couch! Sadly, there were only 7 of us in theater, what another big societal change!

Back to actual running... As I mentioned in my latest blog posts, it's only in February that I was able to do more consistent speed work, and flirt again with the 6 min/mile pace. Through discipline and determination. This Sunday, after last week's 10 repeat miles, I set a new goal: run a few 5K trials under 20 minutes.

Well, that was poor planning vis-à-vis the weather forecast: while the rain had stopped by the time I left home, the wind had picked up at 15 mph, and gusts of 30 mph, yikes!

I couldn't hold last week's pace and was disappointed of clocking 20:49 for the first attempt. Warmed up, I decided to push harder on the second series: first mile at 6:19, 6:27 for the second, 6:20 for the third, then 41" for the last half lap, for a total of 19'48", phew! While I was pleased of at least breaking 20 minutes, I didn't think I was going to improve from there, especially with that wind, and didn't want to take more risks of pushing too hard, so call it a day and just ran back home.

I'm excited to see which pace I can hold at the Big Bunny 5K next week. After that focus on speed, I'll had to get back to rebuilding more endurance for the upcoming Spring races.

As for the knee, it seems like, the faster I run, the less I feel it. It's more like a mild inflammation afterwards, but nothing compared to the pain of 12 and 6 months ago. As they say: "Enjoy while it lasts..." So, yes, I'm grateful for these additional miles of running. For many months last year, I wasn't sure I could get back at it at all.

Grateful for the dozens of messages and wishes I received over the weekend, that was definitely a very special time. Including not snapping my knee this time, phew! Regarding the messages, it feels so great to hear from more friends than your age in years. I know, when age is only a number... 😜 Love you all. And feeling so much for the Ukrainians...