Sweating in Style

I am sitting here on my parents couch, happy to have just learned that Florida is a number two seed in the tournament, losing feeling in my leg as I rest my knee on a frozen bag of trader joe's peas. It's been a long road to this day, less than two weeks before the half and I am scared and upset.

I am tracing it back to last Sunday, when I bought a new pair of running shoes for the first time in 20 months. I had been wearing LeeRoy since July 09 but was rarely running before October so didn't think it was a big deal. I did, however, think I should have a fresh new pair of kicks before the half. I bought pink asics, putting aside their ugliness for the more important fact that they were the most comfortable in the store and one of the two best shoes for long distance running based on Josh's iphone research on runnersworld.com.

I ran 5 in them on Monday and 5 Tuesday. Me knee hurt a little bit on Wednesday at work but no big deal, right? Wrong. I didn't have time to run again during the week, postponing my discovery of their ineptitude. I ran a quick 3 yesterday and was fine. But today, I left Josh alone to drive to our weekly Sunday dinner at the "Shaw Pad" (you can find it on foursquare) and I ran here. My knee hurt about a mile and a half in but it was ok and I pushed on. It went away and came back a few times but in the last mile (of six), it got pretty bad. I had a long steep hill to run up and it was really bothering me. Still, I kept running. I was less than half a mile away, in their neighborhood, running up another, much shorter, steep hill and there was some sharp shooting pain that made me stop. I just couldn't run. I kind of limped a little and whimpered to the top of the hill. Then I ran really slowly, awkwardly, and painfully the rest of the way because I refuse to accept that I couldn't physically run six miles. I was whimpering in pain the whole way and on the verge of tears in such utter frustration. I got to the house within a minute of Josh and started crying with him and my parents. I was so afraid that, after all this training and excitement, I won't be able to run 13.1 miles thirteen days from now. I have calmed down but I'm still nervous and frustrated. I don't know if I should blame the shoes but I can't think of any other explanation. It wasn't smart for me to wait three weeks before the race to buy new shoes. I am going to take four aleve a day, as prescribed by doctor Betsy, wear something on my knee, and switch back to my old shoes for the next two weeks. I am going to try not to complain or fret too much but I know how immensely disappointed I will be if I cannot succesfully complete this run. I ran ten and I know I am capable of running three more. Please just let my body cooperate.