I'm so Hardcore

I ran 5 miles this afternoon in the worst weather ever: pouring rain, temp of 43, winds gusting to 20mph. It was ridiculous, and really, although I'm hardcore, it basically sucked. I was saturated in about 2 minutes. Add the wind on top of that, and I was cold. Perhaps I should have worn something waterproof. Anywho, even when the wind was at my back, it was still chilling. Anywho, I survived. And, oh yes, I'm so hardcore.

This morning, I wasn't even sure I was going to get out for a run. When I first woke up, I had some pain in my left knee: in the front, below the kneecap, just left of center. Strange. It hurt quite a bit, and just magically appeared. By the afternoon, I stretched a fair amount, and it was feeling better. I'm 90% sure it's based on tightness. Yesterday, I wasn't so good to myself. I got up, drove 125 miles, sat at desk, drove 125 miles, went to bed. Not really the healthiest day. It felt fine while I was running, but it's a touch squacky this evening. Should be OK, though.

Today also marked the maiden voyage for my new watch. I have a pretty kick ass watch already, and it hasn't failed me yet. It has way more features than I use, but the altimeter is great for hiking, and the barometer is pretty useful. But, the stopwatch function is very limited. It only has one lap split, and you can't go back and review it. So, not great for running. I went all out on my new watch: $25 Timex Ironman. Yup, the classic. The good news is that it only has a 30-lap memory, so I can't run anything longer than 30 miles.

On tap this week, besides gorging myself on turkey, is the Feaster Five. I guess I'm ready. I haven't really done any speedwork, so I'm not sure how I can think that I'm ready. Either way, it will give me a good baseline for where I am speed-wise. Although, I'm not really sure I want to know. Should be a fun race, nonetheless. Everyone gets a free pie...how can that not be fun? Anyway, my goal is to come within 5 minutes of the time I ran here the last time I ran this race. Not sure I can pull it off. I last ran this race in 1996. I was a senior in college, and I was coming off a cross country season in which I was, surprise, injured for most of it. I'd healed up in the last couple weeks of the season, so by Thanksgiving, I was in pretty good shape. I ran 27:26 to finish 17th overall. Like I said, it will be tough to get within 5 minutes of that. Something tells me my race report will include the phrase: "my hamstrings felt like they were going to explode."