February 8-11, 2017

This started out as a pretty normal week, I needed to get 10 miles in on that Friday, so I coordinated with TG to meet out at the bike trails that afternoon to get our run in. She had some work stuff come up and was unable to make it last minute, so it was just me and Cooper, the Wheaten Terrier. It was hot that day. I know the summer months will bring even hotter temps, but it was 90ish degrees, which is worth mentioning this time of year. Cooper started off wearing his pack so that he could carry his own water & bowl. Less than 3 miles in, his water bottle opened or leaked and was completely empty. So after the 3-mile loop, we stopped at the car and left his pack there. I offered him water from my pack every 2.5 miles, and texted an updated to C and TG, I felt like things were going pretty slow. I stepped funny on my left foot twice and felt some pain shoot through my ankle and up my leg. I didn't really twist or roll anything, just one of those steps where you feel like your ankle didn't flex like it should and everything just jams. After the second misstep around mile 7, my knee started hurting pretty bad. The back and the outside part. I last saw my car at mile 5, so I thought, "I'll go out to 7.5, and then turn around and backtrack to my car," at mile 7.5 I stopped to give Cooper some water and there was a sign that said "only 1 mile left," if that was the case I would just continue forward and get back to the parking lot and then head down the 3 mile loop until I needed to turn around. Well, mile 8.5 came, mile 9, 9.5, 9.75 and still no parking lot. Ugh. I had the front gate saved as a location on my phone, so I started trying to "navigate" back to that pin, but the trails aren't on my phone and iPhone isn't good at navigating a bushwhack through cactus. I was tired, hot, and hurting, Cooper was dragging, and covered in cactus needles and "porcupine eggs," we crossed paths with an armadillo, but we finally made it back to the car with a total mileage of 10.55, which isn't bad considering, but mentally I was done way before that. Average pace was 14:37. I met up with C and took D swimming while he worked out.
The next morning I met AW to finish up the week with a 5-mile run that hurt SO BAD. My knee and my calf were KILLING me. I think she had 8 miles to do that day, so after 4.5 I left her and headed back to the car, when she was out of sight I started walking/hobbling nearly in tears. It was awful!