I went to AYC and enjoyed a 30-minute treadmill run – yes I enjoyed the run. This was the first run in almost a year where I ran for thirty minutes without stopping. Which is a huge step forward in my progression back to running.

No, it doesn’t mean that I will be able to do this on a daily basis (yet), but it is a step in that direction.

Initially, I was uncertain about how my knee would respond to running this morning because it was rather grumpy while warming up. When I finished my 5:00 minute walk warm-up, I decided to attempt to run a mile and reassess how I felt when I got to that point. While the knee discomfort never completely disappeared, it remained at a manageable 2-3 pain level and didn’t worsen – so that was encouraging.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too bothersome once I got going at 6.2 mph, it even felt a little better once I got past the first mile. Since I was feeling pretty good, I decided to play some mind games to keep myself going and see how long I could go before the knee told me that I would need to stop and move to doing repeats with one minute rest intervals.

I kept running, doing the mind games, listening to my race music playlist, and got to 20:00 minutes without the knee complaining, and then the next thing I knew I was passing the 25:00 minute mark. Yeah, I was sweating profusely and this run was getting into uncharted territory for me since the surgery.

Yes, I was also getting tired since I haven’t run this long in a while and am rather meechy about how the knee feels. However, since I had gotten this far and the knee was still doing okay, I knew that I was going to make it to thirty minutes. Which would be the best I’ve done since last May.

Yeah, I was pretty psyched about it!

Then at the 29-minute mark, I increased my speed from the 6.2 mph I had been doing for the entire run, up to 7.1 mph. It is something that I have always done run the last minute of a treadmill run, go a little faster, just to keep the body used to running quicker at the end of a run, but not over stressing the body by attempting to run hard for too long.

Yep, I felt good and finished the 30:00 minute run and according to the Garmin/Stryd footpad combo, I had covered 3.1 miles.

Overall, I felt good, though my left calf was a bit tight afterward, nothing overly serious though. However, I’ll monitor this, as my calves have caused problems before, but taking I’m find that taking a day off after running while I am rehabbing everything seems to help alleviate problem areas.

After the run, I used three upper body machines (chest press, overhead press and chest fly) at 75 pounds and was feeling pretty fatigued. So, I stopped at that point, versus attempting to push the body too hard and injure something that would set me back. Which is a huge deal for me, since in the past I would’ve pushed and typically ended up with a minor injury that delayed or stopped whatever gains I had been making. Who knows maybe I’m finally starting to get a little smahter as I get older.

The new orange Topo Specters that I ran in today disappeared on my feet and didn’t bother at all. If they continue to perform this well, I will be quite happy.

Today was a good workout and one that was a big confidence builder. Now, I just need for the knee discomfort to start disappearing even more when I run, so I can relax and just run. It will happen — I just have to be patient (which is something I’m not that great at).