What's next?

The most common question has been what race is next on my running/racing agenda.  Short answer- No race.  I knew SD would take a lot of my body and that I might end up nursing a niggle, so I've been exercising restraint in only looking at other races and not actually forking over the dough.  My knee is still bothering me; it's getting better but definitely not 100%.

Prior to SD, I visited Kathy at Dynamic Touch Massage and she worked out my calf knots so I took her advice and went back for a massage this week.  Gillian, the other massage therapist, had an opening at the Lake Forest office Friday and I jumped for it as I wanted to get back on the trails ASAP.  She noticed that my left quad was tight, especially around the knee and focused on it; I noticed a difference by Saturday. Yay! So, again I highly recommend checking them out for a massage.

I've been hitting the pool for some easy swimming and have attempted a few short pool run sessions.  I'm a really bad swimmer thanks to not growing up around water and never swimming enough to get good, so I'm considering taking swim lessons in July.  I need to do something with all this extra energy from not running and I can only pool run so much without losing it.

Today was the new member meeting for the So Cal Trail Headz and I was hesitant about going since I find it hard to go to the trails and not run.  I woke up a little late thanks to waking up so many times during the night (and checking on Western States runners) but decided to go to the meeting point and then walk a couple of miles and finish in time to join the group for the social time.  My knee felt better this morning (yay!) but my left achilles was really tight (?!) but I managed to jog 2.5 miles with a couple of walk sessions.  That made me so happy as I've missed running!!!  I enjoyed getting to chat with other members and was very happy I went since I met someone (gentleman whose name starts with "M" and I can't attempt to spell...btw, I'm horrible with remembering names so I apologize) who found out about the group thanks to my blog and again got to chat with Dave (another member who reads my ramblings)...so cool!  I'm a little shy in person so I can't wait until I am back to running so I can do more group runs and get to chat with other people; running together makes talking easier for me.

The knee held up "ok" but the achilles is very tight so I'll probably take at least a couple of days off before another test run.  No sense in pushing it and winding up hurting for months!  The faster I recover, the faster I can choose a race and sign up.

Not running has left plenty of time for me to look at other races and I'm still on enough of a crazy streak where I've made a list of 100s to consider for my next.  I've made pros/cons list in my head for each one and who knows if my body will be ready in time for another one this year but I can dream, right?  A few on the short list- Javelina Jundred, Chimera, HURT.  "Watching" such an exciting Western States, plus my boyfriend asking me if I wanted to do it, made me decide to enter the lottery for 2011 and I will enter every year until I get selected and finish it.

Congrats to all the Western States runners!!! Truly incredible!!!