onepinkfuzzy

I met Mike's wife, Kiera, and her friend Lisa at the trailhead. I first met Kiera two years ago at a mid-town playground where Ash and Haiden (the same age) liked to play. We lost touch, and then I stumbled across Mike's blog, and we all got reacquainted!

We decided to go for a 4.3-mile trail run (i.e. hike-run). We started at the trailhead on the east side of the parking lot, and I led Kiera and Lisa over to the Phoneline trail. We hiked up the cheese-grater rocks up and over to a cutoff trail that took us down to the floor of the canyon. We were having a great time with easy conversation, and I felt great. No pain in my knee, my lungs felt good, I had fueled and hydrated correctly and all was well.

As I launched myself down the cutoff trail, which can be steep and rocky, I started to feel it - the tightness in my left knee. I kept running, because it felt so good to be moving over the terrain. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could.

We made it down the cutoff trail, and managed to find our way across the dry streambed, up to the first tram stop and over to Rattlesnake Canyon. By this time, the tightness had turned into pain. I kept running, because it just felt so damn good - except for my left knee. I started to whimper and pout. Kiera and Lisa just let me know to take it easy and slow down if I needed to. We wound up and over the little ridge that separates Rattlesnake from the tram road, and I decided to run the last little distance from the ridge to the tram road. At the tram road, I had to stop running. I was too worried about injuring it further! I was bummed. We walked out the last approximately three-quarters of a mile. They both said, "We need a cool-down, right?" Right! It took us one hour to do about 3.5 miles, so it wasn't exactly super fast - but it did include a decent amount of hiking and vertical elevation gain - which gave us a great workout.

I made sure to stretch once we got back to our cars. I needed to get back home, and so had to pass on Kiera's offer of coffee. ("Mike makes a mean cup of coffee") But I stopped at Starbucks on the way home. Of course, since I hadn't had any coffee yet, I promptly dropped my cup. Yes, all of it spilled out. :( They gave me another cup, and I didn't have to pay for it, so thank you Starbucks! I got coffee for Johnny and Ash's favorite vanilla milk, so I came home bearing gifts, which were much appreciated.

Once home, Johnny crawled back into bed, and I iced my knee. Whew, that felt so much better! It looks like I shouldn't run more than three miles at a stretch until I heal up. I also need to make sure I am stretching every day (not just every other day, like I have been doing).