It's on like flan

That may not look like it rhymes, but if you pronounce flan like my Puerto Rican friend, it does. Good news, my knee is going to be ok and I'm currently planning to run the full marathon in 3 weeks.

Insert big plug for the Salt Lake Running Company here. This is why you should go to specialty running stores and not the big chains. They are staffed by actual runners who know what they are talking about. I went in Friday. Looked at some inserts, talked over my knee issue.

The girl suspected it was tight muscles which were pulling the kneecap out of place and the tendon and bone were rubbing. She got me down on a foam roller and I rolled out the muscle. I was definitely very tight. I bought one on the spot. I started working on my quads as soon as I got home. Knee felt fine after that. (Note: She was reasonably careful not to claim to give medial advice and made suggestions only. I don't' want to get anyone in trouble for giving out medical advice. They give out reasonable tips and will even advise checking with doctors or whoever applicable.)

Saturday morning I went for an 18 miler. I had already decided if I couldn't do 18, I'd drop down to the 1/2 marathon. I rolled out before I went. I don't know if you should work you muscles right before a run, and I don't plan to in the future, but I wanted my muscles stretched out as much as possible.

I did pretty good. I met up with a friend at miles 10-16. I'm actually really thankful she met me cause at about mile 12 I got tight again and my knee was killing. It helped to have that extra motivation of having someone there. I did some stretches and massaged my quad and it helped. Every 2-3 miles after that I had to stretch and massage.

Actually I got some really strange looks from some solar astronomy group (they had posters up that's why I know it was solar astronomy). I used the park bench to dig in and stretch out my quad. I leaned forward on the edge and used it to pull the muscle out. I won't say what I think it probably looked like, but it was weird enough that people were staring. I didn't care cause it helped.

I ended up going 19.5 miles. I felt ok at 17 so I went just a smidgen further. I stretched and rolled out a lot throughout the day Saturday & Sunday. I'm a bit sore today, but I've been worse.

Two weeks of tapering and then the marathon!