3-26-10 A test run....

After Wednesday's weird and painful run, I took Thursday off. I hadn't had any real pain since, just a little twinge here and there so I figured I would do a really short run and try out a couple new things I bought to get me through my 14 mile run tomorrow.

I have been having knee pain off and on, and after the weird shooting pain I had I can't help but wonder if my knees are causing the rest of my body to run weirdly. So I got these braces and I am hoping they will help. (In the past when I see people wear any kind of knee brace I have just wanted to say "I know how to make your knee quit hurting, just quit running you crazy person." Well now I must have become one of those crazy people who like to inflict injury upon themselves.)

Won't those look lovely when I wear shorts. :)

(That is now my leg, by the way.)

Luckily it is still cold enough to wear pants, to cover up my weird black knee bands.

I also bought this lovely product.

I have high hopes for this one. I tried it today just to make sure I wasn't allergic to it and that it doesn't feel sticky. I seemed sort of like the consistency of chapstick. I really really hope it does what it says it can do. I guess I will know tomorrow if it works or not.

And last, I bought a little water bottle. I have been trying to figure out what to do on my longer runs when I need to drink. I looked at the belts with 2-4 bottles attached, I looked at the water bottles with straps to hold on to but all of them seemed like they would get in the way. I ended up finding this:

It has a clip that you can clip onto a belt or waistband. I took it this morning and tried to run with it but it bounced way to much. So I mostly just held it in my hand, which was fine. But then I had a thought. I had seen this water bottle online so I decided to adapt my little bottle to strap around my arm. I cut off the clip and then got my old MP3 armband and came up with this:

It worked. It isn't too heavy, it doesn't bounce around. It isn't real big so it doesn't hold a lot of water but I tend to run in places where there are parks, gas stations and near my mom's house. So my plan is to just fill it up and then plan my running routes to be somewhere that I can refill it if I need to.

So with all my new gadgets I should be totally ready. (Right?)

I am nervous about 14 miles tomorrow. I really want to be able to finish.