What-a-day

Today started just like all the rest. Except last night I couldn't sleep. Wierd but it happens. So I was a bit tired starting out. I was cruising along through 5, 10, 15 miles but something wasn't quite right. Around the 15.1564334566 mile mark my hip started feeling strange. Not hurting, just strange. By the 15.164335667 mile mark it hurt. The best I could figure was that I have been running with a slight limp since my achillies issue trying to baby it a bit and now my opposite hip has decided to make it's presence known.

Being that I am about 12 miles ahead of the very tentative schedule, I cut today's 26 miler into a 24 miler and decided that I was being smart by not pushing it too hard. Unfortunately, pushing myself is one thing that I do most of the time without even thinking so to cut myself off is often harder for
me than to keep going.

Being that I ended right next to the hotel room that was donated, (how convenient) I decided to shower before making our way to the Phoenix Marathon expo where I would hand out business cards like they were candy. Chiseling off road grime in the shower is possibly the greatest feeling in the world. It's right up there with peeling Clementines, the first bite out of a loaded pb&j, and holding a puppy without having to smell it's breath. Let's face it, puppy breath smells bad.

Anyway, we went to the expo, and I hear some guy in the back giving a schpiel about race recovery. Except what this guy is saying makes sense. He wasn't listing off the normal, "take a day off for every mile run." He said to run the day after! I decided that since the guy knew what he was talking about I'd wander over to see what he at least looked like. It was Dean Karnazes. The author of Ultramarathon Man, and 50/50. If you don't know who he is, google him and play eenie meenie minie moe with the first zillion things that come up.

After he was done speaking, I went up and introduced myself and he remembered me from when I first emailed him about coming to the kickoff for the run.
I gave him a card with the website on it and got a picture.


The rest of the expo was good, and I handed out lots of cards with the website. And for those of you who happen to stumble upon this blog without knowing the website, here it is:

Way.to/patricksrun4arthritis




-- Patrick

Location:China