Slushy Fun

Thank you everyone for offering me suggestions on what could be causing my knee pain. After reading all you comments, I decided:
1. To retire my Brooks
2. To roll my IT band more

To start the week off right, I went for a run despite the slushiness of my route.

It was gorgeous, but super slippery. 

I got in an easy 5 miles at a 9:59/mile pace. For a while, I freaked out, because holding the pace felt hard. But I decided to let it go and just enjoy being outside. Also, I really should be doing my easy runs slowly anyways.

Other than not being able to hold a faster pace, the run itself was good. There was no knee pain. The only bad part was stepping in a huge mud puddle and ruining my sneakers. I then made a series of bad life decisions:

1. Oh no mud! I'm going to wipe it off with snow.
2. I'm going to grab the snow with my bare hands and try to rub it on my sneakers
3. That didn't help. And now my hands are covered in mud.
4. I'm going to break a trail to the lake to break through the ice to wash my hands in it
5. Oh wait, snow's too deep for my sneakers, I'm just going to use fresh patch of snow to wipe my hands off.

All the above resulted in super frozen hands with no gloves.

It was too hard to get down to the bank through the snow. 

Luckily, the day wasn't too cold and my apartment, only a mile away. 

Not that bad. I have no idea why I freaked out and started rubbing snow all over it with bare hands. 

After the fiasco, I conveniently ran into the bf and made him take photos of me fake running. If only I had camera men waiting for me all over my running route. 

Yay! I love running! (What my pose and expression was supposed to convey) Looks more like I'm being blinded and going off the sidewalk. 

On the knee front, it didn't hurt during my run. But about an hour after, while I was lying on the bed, I noticed some pain. Enough to make me feel nervous, but not enough to take drastic measures. I think I will keep on foam rolling and not wearing the worn out shoes and see where I am at the end of the week.

On the training plan front, I am going to make a training plan soon, I swear. My friend who ran a 2:45 Boston told me that he'd virtually coach me. Well, he agreed to give me some advice, which I took to mean, "I'll totally be your coach. Please e-mail me tons of questions about everything."

All in all, life is good. 

Happy Monday! And of course, in addition to my friend, I will be relying heavily on you guys as my training progresses for advice. How are your runs going?