Mission Inn and A New Hope

I am thrilled to say that I finished the Mission Inn 10k just a few days ago. Thrilled because, although I did feel some twinges on and off and had to walk a little, overall my knee held up! It SEEMS to be getting better.

Sunday's run was a good test. It was much hillier than I'd expected (a new course from last year), plus hot and windy. Not great racing conditions. I did have to slow to a walk a few times, but overall, the pain was not anything close to as bad as it has been in the past, and the new knee strap I got seemed to help a great deal. Overall, I was about 4 minutes slower on this new course than I was last year at this race, but with keeping it slow and easy on my knee, I was okay with that.

The fact that I was able to complete the race without a huge amount of discomfort gave me some hope that I still might be good for Vegas. I got even more hope from one of my previous Team in Training coaches, who was at the race. He told me that even if I can't get the long 10-12 mile run in before Las Vegas, as long as I'm getting good quality runs in and doing some speedwork, I should be fine. He reminded me that I can't gain a whole lot of strength and stamina in the next two weeks that I don't already have, but what I could do was push too hard and make the knee worse. He suggested cutting back my mileage, icing and resting, and stopping anytime I felt a twinge. His advice plus managing okay at the 10k gave me some of my confidence back that yes, I CAN still do Vegas!!!