Jogging again!

I spent most of the last week visiting my brother and sister in law in Montana and used it for a week of knee recovery. The town they live in affords breath taking views of the Montana Landscape. Their house is situated on 200+ acres of land with lots of lovely hiking trails. Fortunately, the wind gave us enough of a break to get one long walk in Big Timber, and a second in Missoula. Other than those two walks, I spent a lot of time icing, taking advil, and just resting.

And I, tentatively, think it's paid off.

Yesterday I did a slow 4 mile loop from my house with short walk breaks at every mile. Rather than do my standard 4.5 mile loop, I decided to run laps around my neighborhood so that I could head home at the lightest sign of discomfort. Fortunately, no knee funniness for the run! I did get some hamstring cramping on the left side near the knee. I'm beginning to think that my IT band, left ham, and left calf  are putting stress on the joint. I get fairly consistent cramping and my left calf has been sore and knotted (in comparison to the right). However, no knee issues either before or after the run!

The neighboorhood got in the holiday spirit this weekend and I had a lovely time running through the various holiday lights:

I'm taking today off for rock climbing but will be back out tomorrow. My main goal is to keep the pace slow, incorporate walk breaks and see if I can do distance at a slower pace. I really want to be able to run on December 11, although I will absolutely pull out of the race if my knees are giving me problems. No point in running a race only to not be able to run for several weeks after.