I went to bed last night with my right knee aching a bit. I woke up this morning with it aching a bit more, especially when I walked around.

This had me worried some, but I decided that it was worth giving the knee a 10 minute test. If I could get out and run for 10 minutes and it doesn’t hurt any more (or at the very least isn’t acutely painful) then I’d keep going, otherwise I’d go back home and stop.

I didn’t quite make it 10 minutes before turning around. The knee certainly didn’t feel any better but it didn’t really get any worse, either, except when my leg was sliding at a weird angle.

And therein lie the problem. Because it had been raining all night and I thought temperatures had been just over freezing, I didn’t bother putting on screw shoes. However, in between the pockets of slush were pockets of black ice, and I kept slipping around enough that it was bugging my knee and I was worried I was going to fall.

So, I decided to turn around and finish my 10 minute test in the direction of the house so that I could at least change into screw shoes.

On the way home, I passed 2 people stuck in their driveways despite the lack of snow, one of which was a mini-van spinning its tires in a perfectly flat driveway and the other a car that had a driveway with a hill but had driven off the driveway and into the snowbank next to it.

I decided that I don’t really want to get hit by a car again, especially given the poor visibility with the fog, so I didn’t even make it 2 miles total. As I was writing this, a plow went by as well and I definitely don’t trust them.

This evening, my knee was aching enough that I decided it wasn’t worth continuing. It didn’t hurt enough that I’d have stopped in a race or done much more than note it, but I had over 20 miles to run on it tonight and more than that tomorrow.

I’m doubly glad I made this decision before running most of my miles until the gym kicked me out. Visibility on my way home was bad enough that I wouldn’t have gone back outside; I almost drove into a mailbox on my own street. I don’t trust my body to traffic enough to run in conditions like that.

On the plus side, I chose the winners for the recovery socks. Watch the video above to find out who won.

Going forward, I’m going to give my knee a couple days to recover and will see how it feels on Thursday evening with the group I coach at Maine Running Company. Hopefully, I can still do the full 50k on Sunday, and am going to plan on doing at least the first loop.

Here are today’s numbers:

Miles Projected: 25 Miles (325 Miles Total)
Miles Run: 1.66 & 1.33 for 2.99 miles today (311.9 Miles Total)
Duration: 15:50 & 10:01 for 25:51 Today (48:37:18 Total)
Net Weight Change: +½ Pound (+2½ Pounds Total)