focus, focus, focus

It says something about how much I am on automatic pilot that, more than a month after my first symptom in my right knee, it occurred to me I need to do something about it. Here I am, marching into my marathon with an injury.

I started with extensive research on the web. If it's ITB syndrom, then it's mild and atypical. I cannot decide what it is, and the other possibilities are not a better prospect.

First things first, I better avoid running hills until the marathon. For weekday runs I can go back to the threadmill. For my planned 20-mile run this last week-end I was at a loss. The only flat course I know is the Bosque along the Rio Grande where a woman was assualted and shot last week in broad daylight. Since I planned to start at 5:30 am, the Bosque seemed a contraindication of sorts. I chose the track of La Cueva high-school - it would take me 80 loops, OMG, but it would be safe. I still asked my boyfriend to come with me and stand guard until dawn.

It was, exactly as the last really big run before my first marathon, a brutal experience. THE HEAT! The temperature was in the mid-80's before sunrise. I did not care to find out what it was when I finished roughly four hours later, but I did not need numerical indicators to know I was wiped out.

This is the desert. Let's pray for clouds.

My mind is plotted across various exercises and strategies that are going to enhance the overall strenght of my legs, neutralize whatever issue dwells in my right knee, and do away with the injury by sheer effort of will.

It's imperative. Marathons are looming.