Getting my mojo back

Today I went running for the second time in three days.

On Thursday, I did a fast, hilly couple miles -- my regular 2 1/8-mile loop, but at a 7:42/mile pace that had my lungs burning. I had felt a twinge or two in my knee that morning, and ran pissed off. This is a loop that loses and then gains back close to 300 feet of elevation. The knee felt fine.

Today, I did the loop twice at a more sustainable 8:26/mile pace. I even did negative splits on the two loops (18:06 and 17:44), keeping my heart rate over 180 for the last mile and a quarter.

I still questioned my knee with every other step, and at one point thought it was starting to act up. But again I was just too pissed off to care, and kept going. And you know what? My knee was fine.

So it feels awesome to maybe, just maybe, be done with whatever the hell was the problem and start to get back to where I was and go forward again. I'm not quite ready to declare myself 100 percent, but getting there.

Turning a corner?

Quick post. Tried running again, went for three miles Thursday at a decent pace -- somewhere between "comfortable" and "comfortably hard." (Maybe that's "hardly comfortable"?) I wanted to be sure that my slow pace last time out wasn't the reason I made it as far as I did before the pain started. This time, I made it to about 2.5 miles before the knee acted up. This pissed me off, so I decided to finish the run, even picking up the pace the last one-third mile and all-out sprinting the final 50-100 yards. Total time was 26:02. Had minimal soreness afterward.

Oh, during my latest hiatus, I got an X-ray on the knee, which turned out negative, and went to a seemingly worthless physical therapy session where they gave me easier exercises than I'd already done. I might do them anyway in case I have to try to talk my doctor into an MRI. Although it does seem like my knee is SLOWLY getting better. Whatever.