More Race Stuff

Two weeks ago I walked the 10 mile race course during the practice run. A couple weeks before that I walked most of the course with my training group (about 8.75 miles). Both of those training sessions were done much faster than my official race time and both had been done on much hotter days - basically I worked harder the two previous times than I did on Saturday. So why am I so much more sore this time around? Remember the ankle injury from a year ago? That's been bothering me all year and I've just been walking with some low-level pain since then because it doesn't seem to want to heal, so figured that's just how life is. Now that ankle is hurting much worse than it has in the past several months and I'm limping a bit today. Remember the knee pain I've been complaining about lately? Although it is a bit tender today, it's not nearly as bad as the ankle. The knee has been what's bothered me all during this training season and has been progressively getting worse, so for it to not be "that bad" after the race on Saturday is surprising. And perplexing. So for now I'm going to baby my body a bit. Let the ankle heal again before I push too hard doing anything else. Which is annoying, of course. I still want to continue my Travel Race Mania goals (2 races per month through October). But that last race of the season is not going to be the half marathon I'd planned. I've got some race applications for September and will need to pick a couple that are toward the end of the month to give myself time to recover a little, I guess. And will find another couple for October. But the half-marathon isn't happening - in fact, I've already dropped out of the extension training program -- otherwise I would have a scheduled 11 mile training walk coming up next weekend. I'm somewhat disappointed that I won't be ending this season with a half marathon. Kinda. One side of me wants to achieve that goal again, but the other side figures I've already "been there, done that" and I need to move on to something else. I think lately I've been getting bored with walking .... but that's a whole other post and thought process. For now I'll continue with my goal of doing the races as soon as my body recovers some. ~Pam