Oh, the joy -- the pain.

A couple of days ago I ran outside. I guess the planets were in alignment or something.

The temp was nearly ideal (30 degrees), there was little wind (8mph), and I was oh, SOOOO happy to be outside. I drove over to the park with the prairie path and had already mentally mapped out my 4 miles. It only took about half a mile to warm up. All signs pointed to a good run.

I'm trucking along, enjoying the light breeze in my face and the billows of steam coming from my mouth, when around 2 miles I start to feel this niggling pain in my left knee. I decide to ignore it and continue. Beck helps move me along, but the pain gets a little worse. Then it gets pretty bad. Damn.

Like an idiot I keep going, deciding to get to the end of the next mile and then walk back to the car. I shuffle/hobble to the end of the street, turn around and start to walk back. The pain is unbelievable -- it hurt in my left hip, my knee and down in my left ankle/achilles (ITB, maybe?) Seriously, I wanted to cry. And I'm not a pain wimp! I mean, I pushed out all 4 kids with NO drugs!

How did this happen? Did I just let my joy at running outside get the best of me? Did I stride too long and hyper-extend my knee? Is this thing the same thing that made my dad quit running? Will I have to quit? And my first race is one week from today! Big SIGH.

Ironically, I had very little motivation to run that day. I had a number of "Nike moments" before I got out the door. I'll try today and see what happens.

Goddess of Running -- What have I done to displease you??